Maestro Kalmar / Photo by John Rudoff
They tell us:
Surpassing the $7 million mark for the first time in company history, ticket sales are on track to provide over 50% of the company’s total season revenue. In tandem with ticket revenue, seats are also selling in record numbers and are expected to reach over 150,000 seats sold. Ten of this season’s concerts have been completely sold out. With two months and ten concert programs remaining in the season, total annual ticket sales are likely to reach $7.5 million.
These record sales numbers are the result of many things: an orchestra playing at the top of its game; a robust slate of concerts that includes 78 performances of 47 separate concert programs; subscription sales that have seen slight increases over the last few years; and a recovering
Storm Large with Symphony / Photo by John Rudoff
economy, among other felicitous influences.
Another reason for the popularity of this season’s offerings, she noted, was the Symphony’s embrace of local musical talents. Over the course of this season alone, the Oregon Symphony has performed or is scheduled to perform with Pink Martini, Storm Large, Holcombe Waller, Black Prairie, Mirah, Pacific Youth Choir, Dance West, Northwest Community Gospel Choir, Portland Gay Men’s Chorus, Portland Symphonic Choir, Portland State University Chorus, Pacific University Chamber Singers, Tango Pacifico, Pepe Raphael, Angela Niederloh, Carl Moe, Richard Zeller, and many others.
Carlos Kalmar / Photo by Leah Nash
The Company’s 2014/15 season, is Carlos Kalmar’s twelfth season at the artistic helm and the Oregon Symphony’s 119th year. The new season, which opens on September 27, 2014 and closes on May 18, 2015 is comprised (at this moment) of sixty-two performances of thirty separate concert programs that span a wide variety of repertoire and genres, with Classical, Pops, and Kids concert series, as well as special concerts to be added throughout the season.
Kalmar says, “This is a tremendously exciting season. The orchestra is playing at an extraordinary level, demonstrating a cohesiveness, a commitment, and the technical ability to play many, many styles and play them well. The season will give our musicians and our growing family of patrons plenty to enjoy.”
Here’s a complete list of next season’s concerts.
2014/15 Season Highlights
Favorites: Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Gershwin’s Concerto in F, Copland’s Suite from Appalachian Spring, Ravel’s Bolero, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Pictures at an Exhibition, and many others.
Debuting: Sixteen of them, including Dutilleux’s First Symphony, Rouse’s Concerto for orchestra, and Lutosławski’s Partita for Violin and Orchestra.
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg
Balancing out those two ends of the musical spectrum are a number of pieces that haven’t been enjoyed by audiences in quite some time: Stravinsky’s Orpheus (1961), Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques (1970), McDowell’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (1975), Lizst’s Totentanz for Piano and Orchestra (1979), Glazunov’s Violin Concerto(1938), and Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto (1990), among many others.
The return of some of the world’s best known classical stars, including pianist André Watts, and violinists Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Itzhak Perlman. Also the return of some of Portland’s favorite classical artists, including Pink Martini leader Thomas Lauderdale; concertmaster Sarah Kwak; cellist Alban Gerhardt (who returns for his third and final season as Artist in Residence); violinists Karen Gomyo, Stefan Jackiw, and James Ehnes; pianists Stephen Hough and Jeffrey Kahane.
Oregon Symphony debut performances by the internationally renowned guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas, violinist Simone Lamsma, pianist Marc-André Hamelin, and renowned jazz saxophonist James Carter.
Marc-Andre Hamelin
Concertmaster Sarah Kwak appears once again as soloist, performing Glazunov’s Violin Concerto. Plus The return of conductors Michael Francis, James Gaffigan, Christoph König, and Jun Märkl.
Debuting conductors include Resident Conductor Paul Ghun Kim making his podium debut in a classical subscription series concert and Gilbert Varga.
Pops conductor Jeff Tyzik returns with 8 performances of 4 concerts highlighting the American Songbook, Disney movies and music, masters of the clarinet, and beauty of dance.
From Pirates to Peter and the Wolf, this three-concert Kids Concert series is designed for audiences between the ages of 5 and 10. As entertaining as they are educational, they’re concerts that the whole family can enjoy.
Itzhak Perlman
New Year’s Ode to Joy: A Holiday Celebration. Special Concerts also include Itzhak Perlman, Capitol Steps (on election day), Gospel Christmas, Cirque Musica, Comfort and Joy, and more. Additional concerts are expected to be added in the future.
Beyond the concert hall, the Oregon Symphony continues its work in the community, bringing music into the schools, libraries and public gathering spaces. 24 Symphony Storytimes will be held in local libraries in three counties for preschoolers, 36Kinderkonzerts, representing all four sections of the orchestra, will be held in three area host schools for K-2nd graders. 6Young People’s Concerts will be offered at the concert hall on 3 school days for the 3-8th grade students in spring 2015 in both Portland and Salem.
Oregon Symphony subscribers will received their renewal packages beginning February 1 and have until March 31 to renew their seats or request seating changes. New subscribers may purchase their season ticket packages now.
Tickets to the Special Concerts are available at this time only to patrons renewing their subscriptions and patrons purchasing new subscriptions. Those patrons not only have access to these shows but receive, as a subscriber benefit, a discount of up to 10% on those special concert tickets.
Tickets to Oregon Symphony’s Special concerts will go on sale to the general public on May 11. Tickets to all Oregon Symphony Series concerts will go on sale to the general public in August.
Classical series season tickets are priced as follows:
14-concert series, beginning at $266
12-concert series, beginning at $228
7-concert series, beginning at $133
5-concert series, beginning at $95
Pops series season tickets begin as low as $76 for the 4-concert package. Kids Concert series begin as low as $27 for the 3-concert series.
It’s standing-room only. Photo Credit: Mark Petersen
By Josh Kadish
Saturday evening’s Oregon Symphony concert (February 9) was shaped by the passing on Friday of James DePreist, the ensemble’s music director from 1980 to 2003. DePreist is credited with taking the Symphony from a part-time ensemble to a major, full-time orchestra during his long tenure.
Carlos Kalmar, the orchestra’s current music director, wisely chose to replace the scheduled first selection, Hindemith’s Overture to his humorous opera, “News of the Day.” After speaking with DePreist’s wife, Kalmar substituted one of DePreist’s favorite selections, the deeply moving “Adagietto” from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, familiar to many listeners as the theme music for the film, “Death in Venice.” The piece is scored for strings and harp, but the entire orchestra and chorus sat on stage in tribute to DePreist as the piece was played. To leaven and enrich the somberness of the occasion, long-time violinist Ron Blessinger prefaced the performance with some memories of DePreist’s neologisms, eccentric conducting styles, and vivid metaphors. “Play this passage as if the fridge has fallen over and the bugs are running out” and “play this like you are shoveling smoke” stuck in my mind. Blessinger noted that it was not always clear to the performers just how to translate such directions. Thus, the opening section of the concert was a humorous, loving, and tender farewell to the maestro.
The remainder of the concert was devoted to two pieces, one that nobody knows, Britten’s “Ballad of Heroes,” and the second, arguably the single most famous piece of classical music ever written, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. To give you an idea of the rarity of the first piece, Robert McBride, in his pre-concert discussion with Kalmar, noted that he had never heard of it until a radio listener called in to request it just a few years ago. He searched the All Classical library, but it was not to be found.
The listener then sent McBride a copy, so that he could play it on air. But the question remains: How did this listener know the piece? Due to one of those coincidences that keep life interesting, I found myself sitting next to her during the concert. In our intermission chat, she revealed that she had sung the piece in about 1970 with the Wilson High School chorus and orchestra! Where the Wilson music director found the piece must remain a mystery for the moment.
The Britten is linked to the Beethoven in a few ways. It is a piece for orchestra and vocal soloist and chorus, and so finds its roots in Beethoven’s Ninth. It is a multi-movement piece full of drama and, like the Beethoven, it carries a message. Britten was a pacifist, but he set two poems that express the thought that fighting good wars may be justified. The orchestral writing was militaristic in parts, with plenty of percussion, trumpets, and violins tapping strings with bows to create gunfire-like effects.
The imagery was of the battlefield. The middle section, a “Dance of Death Scherzo,” provided both orchestra and chorus the opportunity to display virtuosity. Singing Auden’s long poem at top speed (try “The pictures, the ointments, the frangible wares, And the branches of olive are stored upstairs” a few times) couldn’t be easy. The Portland Symphonic Choir articulated well, but it was still difficult to pick out all the words as they flew by. The final slow section contained a long passage for chorus alone.
There is always a moment of truth about such passages when the orchestra reenters and we get to discover whether the chorus has sagged in pitch without the orchestral accompaniment. The chorus passed the test admirably.
The second half of program was devoted to the Beethoven, which in its way also served as a tribute to the spirit of DePreist. The orchestra, soloists and chorus gave us a tremendous and moving performance of this deeply familiar and deeply beloved work. This is a work that tests the virtuosity of the ensemble. In 70 minutes, it travels a great distance from darkness and struggle to triumph and joy. Kalmar’s conducting was spirited and precise, and the orchestra delivered a burnished and balanced sound.
Numerous passages call for close coordination among the winds, intertwined with lyrical solo passages. The principals of this orchestra are all tremendous players, and it was wonderful to hear their individual lines set against the whole. It was a world-class performance, and it demonstrated how far this group has come in the 30 years since Jimmy DePreist first arrived in our town.
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Josh Kadish is practicing attorney who sings with the Bach Cantata Choir. In the not-so-distant past, he was a professional oboist.
In a broad sense, a serenade can be any piece of music written for an evening’s entertainment, and if you extend the idea of a serenade even more generously, it could be metaphorically extended to cover the evening of one’s life. That may be stretching things too far, but this extended idea loosely connects the pieces on the Oregon Symphony’s most recent series of concerts in which the orchestra played Mozart’s Serenade No. 9 (aka “Posthorn”) and Richard Strauss’s “Tod und Verklärung” (“Death and Transfiguration” and his “Vier letzte Lieder” (“Four Last Songs”). The orchestra’s performance of these works, under the direction of Carlos Kalmar on Saturday, January 26th at the Arlene Schniter Concert Hall, was a very satisfying concert, especially given the sumptuously-warm voice of soprano Amber Wagner, whose singing made the “Four Last Songs” one of the highlights of the season.
Using texts from Hermann Hesse, Strauss’s “Four Last Songs” has a generous and reassuring spirit that more or less welcomes death rather than fight or run away it. With Wagner’s ravishing tone in the forefront, the orchestra embraced the long legato lines of this piece whole heartedly. Led by associtate principal Joseph Berger, the French horn section glowed. Concertmaster Sarah Kwak enhanced her solos with lyrical sensitivity, and the piece came to rest with gracious trills from the piccolos (Zachariah Galatis and an additional musician not listed in the program). The overall effect was himmlisch.
Preceding the “Songs,” the orchestra delivered a gorgeous performance of “Death and Transfiguration,” excelling in dynamic range and expressive details to such a degree that it was easy to imagine the tone poem’s storyline of the sick man, near death, and his transfiguration into the eternal. Some of the best passages involved orchestral pianissimos that allowed the audience to clearly hear the harp, which was impeccably played by principal Jennifer Craig. The woodwind principals also stood out with their ensemble playing as did the expressive playing during the string trio section (Kwak, principal cellist Nancy Ives, and principal violist Joël Belgique).
The concert opened with Mozart’s Serenade No. 9, “Posthorn,” and the orchestra did a fine job in capturing the spirit of the piece, which pleasantly moved across seven movements. The orchestra captured the elegant and springy step of the first movement with very little vibrato and clearly spun lines in the strings. The second movement had plenty of charm, but the third and sixth were more memorable, because of the outstanding solos by principal flutist Jessica Sindell and principal oboist Martin Hebert plus the sextet playing that involved two bassoons, two flutes, and two oboes. The mellow posthorn sound of principal trumpeter Jeffrey Work was intriguing, and the final movement lively. In general, the piece could have used more shaping – or perhaps my ears needed more tuning up.
The second half of the concert was dedicated to the memory of Mary Tooze, who gave a lot of financial support to the symphony, including supporting its most recent recording, “This England,” which was released on the PentaTone label last fall. I interviewed Tooze several years ago at her home. She had a copy of a program that I wanted to see. It was from a concert that Maurice Ravel gave in Portland in 1928. Some of the members in the ensemble (such as violinist Edward Hurlimann) were members of the Portland Symphony (the former name of the Oregon Symphony). No kidding.
The Oregon Symphony’s recording entitled “Music for a Time of War” has been nominated for two Grammy awards 1) for Best Orchestral Performance and 2) for Best Engineering Album, Classical. The album, released on the PentaTone label, contains music that was featured in the orchestra’s impressive concert under the direction of Carlos Kalmar at Carnegie Hall in May of 2011. Those pieces were
“Music for a Time of War” did very well in the classical Billboard charts and has received a number of favorable reviews. If it wins a Grammy award, the orchestra’s stock will surely go up and up and up.
The orchestra’s press release further notes that “Music for a Time of War” was “recorded in hybrid multichannel Super Audio CD format live in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in May, 2011 by Boston-based Soundmirror. CD recording was engineered by Jesse Lewis and John Newton, with master engineer Jesse Brayman. The CD was also included in the Grammy nomination of Blanton Alspaugh for Producer of the Year, Classical.”
Here’s a screenshot from the Grammy web site that lists the Oregon Symphony and the fellow nominated orchestras and their recordings:
The orchestra’s principal percussionist, Niel DePonte, was nominated in 2003 for a Grammy for his performance in Tomas Svoboda’s “Percussion Concerto.”
Emily Saliers and Amy Ray
At the core of Indigo Girls beat the brave hearts of activism. Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have always marched to their own drummers, making out the beats of inner wisdom in music, as in life, by championing the rights of society’s marginalized, often playing fundraisers and adding original folk to the lore of too-often martyred victims, like Mathew Sheppard who haunts “Laramie,” along with a host of pioneers for civil rights.
The environment, animals, suffrage, indigenous peoples, minorities, civil and gay rights- even glass-ceiling sexism in their own industry -have all been poeticized and popularized by the fearless duo during nearly three decades of harmonizing with the mores of their vast legions of loyal fans. Many of us have grown up on Indigo Girl anthems, feeling that much “Closer To Fine,” for having adopted them as our own.
Conducting a career in the public eye with the courage of convictions while earning seven gold records, four of them platinum, and record sales of over 12 million, isn’t the only kind of challenge Indigo Girls embrace. Now touring with The Shadowboxers in support of their 14th studio album, the masterful Beauty Queen Sister; the Grammy Award-winning folk/rock duo are also performing select shows with various orchestras around the country. The veteran performers are dedicated to connecting with their audience, so Indigo Girls performing a tour within a tour seems a next step in the marriage of their musical aspirations and level of commitment.
The Oregon Symphony will welcome Indigo Girls to Arlene Schnitzer Hall in Portland this Friday, November 9th, following their sold-out election day show today in Chicago. Next they’ll head home to play with the Georgia Symphony Orchestra. The avant-garde pairing of folk-rockers with symphony orchestras is a captivating and moving experience for audiences and performer alike.
Catching up with Amy Ray, the veteran performer admits that, “It’s a challenge. This will be only about the sixth one that we’ve done,” and offers high praise to “amazing arrangers,” Sean O’Loughlin (Chris Isaak, Feist, The Decemberists, Josh Ritter) and Stephen Barber (Rosanne Cash, Alejandro Escovedo, John Legend), who wrote the orchestral charts for all of songs selected from the Indigo Girls catalog.
“They came up with the charts… composed the parts for each musician. The orchestras are so amazing they just see the music that day.” Even a consummate performer like Ray gets to experience some jitters when backed by a full symphony, “65-100 players behind you… it’s huge! We can’t veer from the arrangements. We have to be right on our game and,” Ray chuckles, “Rehearse a lot!”
Indigo Girls got their first taste or orchestral maneuvering just a few months ago, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Ray confesses that both she and band mate Emily Saliers are both, “More nervous than at our normal shows” when collaborating with a symphony, and relates that the first time was, “Incredible! We were really nervous… incredibly nervous. We had to play everything right, or it wouldn’t work. The first time it’s incredibly scary. When you get used to it, it just feels… incredibly great! Little by little, you get better at it. It’s very different to hear all of these musical motifs played by the different instruments. There’s even more dimension to the songs. It’s an adrenalin rush!”
Madison Square Gardens, Royal Albert Hall, now symphony orchestras, yet Indigo Girls continue to feed their roots, happily headlining Atlanta Pride just recently. “It’s my home town. So, it’s like having a family show,” Ray laughs, “It’s a bit of a gay frat party in Atlanta, so we had to bust out the dance jams.”
Growing up in Atlanta, where she and Saliers started out as Decauter, Georgia’s “The B-Band,” Ray fondly remembers, “Attending several PRIDEs as a 20-something. I see a lot of change now. What I think is interesting about PRIDEs now is they used to be pretty political. That’s changed. People come and have a good time and don’t have to focus on the politics… They can just relax, maybe hold hands when they don’t feel safe to do that where they live during the other fifty-one weeks of the year. Those kind of things are what makes it worthwhile for me. I know in my heart how important it is to so many to have that freedom. That’s what makes it so special to me.”
Special to us is the latest Indigo Girls offering. Like all of their albums, Beauty Queen Sister is a verdant new adventure into musical genius, for Indigo Girls and for fans. Beauty Queen Sister is also the fourth Indigo Girls album release for IG Recordings, the label Founded by Ray and Saliers. (Ray also Founded Daemon Records to promote independent artists.)
Beauty Queen Sister, “Was recorded in two weeks, according to Ray, “I felt we captured a magical time with a phenomenal group of performers. When we finished the record It was way beyond my expectations. We created a band for the record. It was incredible.” Teasing with sultry soulfulness, like a gorgeous dream played out for the ears, Beauty Queen Sister satisfies with lush lyrics and lavish arrangements that fuse like well-matched lovers to a symphony orchestra.
Indigo Girls are excitedly heading west. “What’s not special about Portland? I love Portland,” says Ray, a frequent flyer to the Rose City, “When I’m in Portland, I have my nature day at Forest Park and my food day, when I just eat… I go to Portland for fun a lot, too, I have a lot of friends there.”
Portland will have lots of fun feasting on Indigo Girls live this Friday, November 9th when Music Director Carlos Kalmar and the Oregon Symphony host the slightly nervous and massively talented duo at 7:30 pm at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets: $31. and up.
The Oregon Symphony concert travelled from the weird and often scary “Asyla” of British composer Thomas Adès to the soothing and generally happy “Variations on a Rococo Theme” of Tchaikovsky to the tragic music of Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” on Saturday evening (September 27th) at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. This superb concert, the best so far in the 2012-2013 season, was heightened by the playing of guest cellist Alban Gerhardt in the Tchaikovsky. All of the works were deftly led by music director Carlos Kalmar.
The performance began with “Asyla” (which is the plural of asylum), written in 1997 by Adès, who has gained a reputation for writing some of the most imaginative music today. “Asyla” has got to be a dream job for the percussion section, in part, because of the wide variety of unusual instruments that they get to play, such as tuned cowbells, paint cans, knives, washboard, water gong, and a geophone (a drum filled with thousands of BBs). “Asyla” also uses three pianos, with one of them tuned a quarter tone lower, plus a full woodwind section that employs bass flute, bass oboe, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, and contrabassoon. All in all, the stage of the Schnitz was filled with all types of instruments.
The four-movement work began with cowbells that had a lightly ringing, almost transparent sound. The strings sounded like a glass harmonica and wandering lines for flutes and strings wandered. A snippet of a Bach passacaglia seemed to be part of the mix at one point, and the ended with a gong being dipped into water.
The second movement had sounds that dripped downward like a Salvador Dali painting. Some of the phrasing seemed very loopy. But it all subsided to a quiet space before transitioning to an elegiac sound with sustained, burnished tones from the French horns. This was later topped off by cowbells and concertmaster Sarah Kwak playing extremely high tones.
The third movement, “Ecstasy” was a wild ride, punctuated by blasts from percussion and trumpets. For a while the orchestra sounded like a steel drum ensemble, then principal percussionist Niel DePonte whacked out a manic beat on the bass drum, and the entire ensemble dived into a repetitive zigzagging passage that could’ve taken the chrome off of a 68 Thunderbird.
The fourth movement started off with slumping sounds and a struggle to reawaken, as if someone was recovering from a drug overdose. “Asyla” had been a scary and thrilling experience. As the applause started up, my wife turned to me and said “Happy Halloween.”
Gerhardt’s poetic playing of Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme” was golden. He didn’t sacrifice lyricism even when he was playing lightening quick runs. His fingers kissed the highest notes so that they could melt into your ears. The articulated glissandos were fantastically executed. Gerhardt was an Orpheus who could make his cello sing.
The orchestra shined in its supporting role, playing with a terrific sense of musicality that added polish to the music. Highlights included principal horn John Cox’s smooth glowing sound and the lovely duet between principal flutist Jessica Sindell and principal clarinetist Yorshinori Nakao.
Gerhardt extended his generosity with an encore, playing Dvořák’s “Silent Woods” with the orchestra. This was a warm and heartfelt piece that featured the cello climbing while the French horns were descending. But, unlike almost all other guest soloists, whenever Gerhardt stops in town, he likes to join orchestra. So, in the second half of the program, he played with Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” with the cello section.
“Romeo and Juliet” consists of 52 suites that are usually not played in full, because it would take over two hours. So, Kalmar selected the ones that he wanted for the concert, and they included the most famous numbers such as the “Dance of the knights” and “The young Juliet.” Under Kalmar’s direction, the orchestra excelled in creating all of the contrasting emotions in Shakespeare’s famous play. It was easy to picture the tenderness of Juliet, the macho of Mercutio, and the resolve of Romeo. The strings took an exhilarating tempo in “The Fight” and “Juliet’s funeral” and “Juliet’s death” had tragic scope.
Supertitles of each scene might have helped audiences digest the music a little better. At one point the sound for the orchestra slow down and fell away, causing listeners to applaud. Outstanding playing by the orchestra included the terrific efforts of Kwak, Sindell, principal bassoonist Carin Miller Packwood, principal cellist Marilyn de Oliveira, and saxophonist Kim Reece. Bass trombonist Charles Reneau weighed in with considerable heft, which made the “Dance of the knights” memorable.
Final note: In light of the orchestra’s recent cancellation of their scheduled trip to Carnegie Hall, it was amazing that all of the musicians and Kalmar kept their focus on creating great music. It could have been so easy to give an uninspired performance, but this group continues to raise the bar on themselves. Wow!
According to this account in the Detroit Free Press and another in the New York Times, the Detroit Symphony will fill in for the Oregon Symphony at Carnegie Hall at the Spring for Music Festival in May. Just last week, the Oregon Symphony cancelled its trip to the prestigious venue because sources for funding were not forthcoming and a potential deficit looms on the horizon. So, on the one hand, it is wonderful to hear that the DSO under the helm of Leonard Slatkin will jump in to fill the bill. They were already going to be in town to play at Carnegie as part of the festival. But here is the kicker, they will play two of the pieces that Oregon Symphony and Carlos Kalmar had programmed: Kurt Weil’s “The Seven Deadly Sins” with Portland’s own Storm Large and Ravel’s “La Valse.” That’s great for Storm and for the Spring for Music folks. But it really is a downer for Oregon. Kalmar has brought this orchestra to a world class level, but Oregonians can’t find the money to make this trip a reality. So here we have poor, tired, broken down Detroit, which has seen some incredible economic hardships over the past decade (including a near-financial meltdown at the DSO), find the buckos to make an extra concert a reality. That makes Oregon – and Portland in particular – look absolutely pathetic.
When we think of music directors, we usually picture someone in front of an orchestra or a choir with a baton, but radio stations can have a music director too. At All Classical FM, the music director is John Pitman. I read his bio online and stopped by the station to talk to him about his job.
You’ve listened to 25,000 CDs that belong to the station’s library. Where do you keep all of them?
Pitman: Most of the CDs that we have acquired are shelved here and in rotation today. I can take you to the shelf that has CDs that we acquired in the fall of 1984. The majority of CDs have come from the labels themselves as new releases. On the average, we get 30 CDs per month. It’s hard to keep up.
You went directly into radio from Benson High School?
Pitman: Yes, and I had already been working at KBPS for two years by the time I graduated from Benson in ’83. Back then, the station had a program called Summer Sound, and Kevin Flink had some money in his budget for a kid to be a board operator. From 1 o’clock in the afternoon until 5, it was reel-to-reel tape machine programs, news coming from the satellite, and that sort of thing. That was my first job. During that summer they were building the FM, putting the finishing touches on it. That was just a couple pieces of equipment strung together. There wasn’t even a production room, no on-air booth, no board, no microphone. We broadcasted a program called NPR Plus from satellite. So my job on the FM station was just to do an ID at the top of the hour and wait 59 minutes. Then I’d do another ID and wait 59 minutes, and the same thing again. That went on for a few months until NPR lost its funding of that program – or had to cut back. So we had to come up with a creative solution on the local level. We quickly assembled a board. It had wires hanging like laundry lines that went over to the other equipment. We still didn’t have a booth; so the board was placed out in the main transmitter area.
Did you hear classical music when you were growing up?
Pitman: I was lucky to grow up in a household that listened to classical music – my dad primarily. Actually, my dad met my mom when she was working at the downtown library in the music department. She would haul stacks of 78s up and down, refilling them, and all that. He had been into classical music from the time when he was in the service during WWII. So I grew up hearing Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, and a fair amount of opera, because our next-door neighbor was an Italian-American. He was much older than my dad and grew up hearing the singers from the ‘20s and ‘30s. So, I acquired some of that by osmosis.
Of course, there was a ton of composers and music that I didn’t know, but I heard lots and lots of music every hour because of the NPR feed. It was like growing up on your block and then discovering the rest of the city and then the world. So within a few months of working at the station, I had become exposed to an unbelievable array of music. I had never heard Mahler’s symphonies, Shostakovich’s symphonies, works by Prokofiev and others before. It’s shocking when you’ve never heard it before.
When did you start hosting programs at the station?
Pitman: I think that it was around 1985 or ‘86. I was part-time at first. My program director and predecessor, Darryl Conser, wanted to ease me into the job. It was the right way to go. Over those first few years, I went from part time to full time and moved from weekends to weekdays. Then in 2005-2006, I became the music director.
Did you go to college at the same time?
Pitman: Yes; at the beginning I took community college courses part time. But I hate to admit that I never finished college.
You are in good company with other classical radio people like Fred Child. While he was studying at Oregon State, he got into broadcasting and never looked back.
Pitman: I had found my niche here at the station. I knew within the first few months that this is where I wanted to be – classical music on the radio right here.
Pitman: I did take classes over the next several years for things that I felt would apply to my work here. I had had German in high school, but after I had been announcing for a while, I didn’t like how I was guessing at how to pronounce French names and words. So I took a year of French. I also worked with Darryl and with Tanya Thompson, who was our original full-time host. Plus I listened to announcers on the network.
There’s some programming on the weekends that Robert McBride and Edmund Stone do for their special programs, and there are packaged segments like The Metropolitan Opera, The Chicago Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic, but outside of that, you figure out a lot of programming.
Pitman: I’m in charge of most of the programming from Monday through Friday, 24 hours a day with the exception of Thursday night’s Northwest Previews, and large chunks of the weekend like the overnight part. Until the Met starts up again, I take care of the programming for 10 am to 2 pm on Saturdays. There’s also a late night block that involves our CDs and our local hosts.
That’s a lot of time to fill up with music every week! How do you do that?
Pitman: The tool that I use is software that has inputted all of the data of all of the recordings that we want to play on the air. Because it has a searchable database, I can search for all of the Beethoven that we have. I can search for all of the pieces that have a nickname in them like “Moonlight.” Or I can search for everything that is played by a certain group like the Vienna Philharmonic or a certain singe or instrumentalist. I can search on all of the choral music or all of the chamber music.
But you have so many choices between short pieces and longer ones. Some symphonies run over an hour.
Pitman: We’ve decided that there are certain hours of the day where certain pieces sound best and suit our listeners needs the most. If you listen to All-Classical throughout the course of a day… say you start sometime in the morning when Brandi Parisi is on, that’s called Morning Drive. That’s a term that any radio station would use regardless of their format. Most people are waking up and are quite active. They might be getting ready for work or for school. Even if they are not, they may be making breakfast, putting on their coffee and thinking about what they wanted to do during the day. So we play short pieces that are livelier, and I hate to use the term “light,” because “light” and “classical” don’t always mix well and can be interpreted in different ways. But during the morning drive, you are less likely to hear dramatic, romantic works or very long works.
The next part of the day, when Christa Wessel comes on, she still have some of the early morning fare, but you’ll sense that we start to settle in with bigger works. People are now at their desks or at school. This is a time when you might hear Christa play Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony or maybe a large concerto and a variety of other pieces. Noontime becomes a mini drive-time, because people are moving here and there. Then we settle into the afternoon with Robert McBride.
That’s a snapshot of how you’ll experience different kinds of classical music during the day.
Do you program everything down to the minute or second?
Pitman: Yes. The first thing for the host does after starting a piece of music, is look at what he or she needs to say during the next break. You want to have that next break set up, because you might have a sponsor announcement, a legal station ID at the top of the hour, or a story that introduces the music selection. Each setup will vary in length.
What happens during the fund drives? That must be difficult to program?
Pitman: It’s a lot more intense. It takes a lot longer to produce a membership drive log than a normal log. During those drives, the hosts and their guests talk for longer stretches of time, and I have to take that into account when I create the music logs. We try to select energetic pieces as part of the overall message.
We spend a lot of time listening to music. Programming isn’t a random thing. I try to plan things out at least one week ahead of time. More is better! But I can’t sit here and take a hundred percent of the credit, even though in the early days of this station I had to do all of the logs plus an on-air shift. After our CEO and President Jack Allen came on board, he took some time to observe and study the situation here, and decided to hire John Burk as Program Director. John learned how to use Music Master, which is our software program, and he has taken on some of the responsibility of putting together the music logs. That’s great for me, because I need time to listen to the new recordings that come in every day.
What is the difference between a Program Director and a music director?
Pitman: The program director instructs and coaches the on-air hosts, and provides them with the written copy that they need for their announcements. The program director also plans ahead, looking at the programming direction for the next six months or the next year. For example, he looks at whether or not we should do more local programming and less network programming.
What kind of software program do you use?
The editing program is called Adobe Audition. When you bring it up on your screen, you have a couple of views. You can look at a single track, and it’s stereo so the top half is the left channel and the bottom half is the right channel. There’s a dotted line between them. But if you are doing an Oregon Symphony program where you have a column with your voice track, Carlos Kalmar’s voice in the interview, the first piece of music, the send piece, and so on, then you switch to a multi-track view with one or more tracks reading from left to right. When it is all lined up, it all looks like a brick wall with some bricks missing. You can grab all that in a mix-down and the program puts it into the next available track as one stereo-audio file. You save that file with a name and a number, and it’s ready to be played on the air by a special software program that plays the audio cuts.
When you first started here, you probably had to do all this with much different tools.
Pitman: Right. We had a mixing board and a couple of reel-to-reel tape machines. We had to literally cut and splice things. We could keep track of where we were with digital counters. We used Otari machines, and you developed a good sense of how to listen for gaps and spaces. Most of it was guess work. Some people may have used a grease pencil and made marks on the back side of the tape. The next generation of machines had digital clocks that told how much time had been used.
For a while, the radio frequency from our AM station bled into the FM station. We had to us copper shielding to prevent that from happening.
Is the audience for classical music dying?
Pitman: I don’t see that happening. I see classical music changing.
A lot of people switch to classical music later in life. I think that they are tired of listening to pop songs that last only three minutes. They are interested in longer pieces that are more complex and have a bigger range of emotion.
Pitman: It’s becoming more common. Rather than the archetypal listener who studied music or took band or choir in high school and never strayed from classical music, we are finding a lot of baby boomers who are discovering classical music. We’ve got a good place for them to experience that right here at All Classical FM.
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