Erie Phil From Home, Episode 44

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Erie Phil From Home, Episode 44

Our fourth online Coffee Chat hosted by Music Director Daniel Meyer, featuring an amazing collection of special guests talking about the science behind Music Therapy:

Tom Brooks · Erie Philharmonic Chorus Director
Martha Summa-Chadwick · Executive Director, Music Therapy Gateway in Communications
Maureen Barber-Carey · Executive VP, Barber National Institute

Stay safe and healthy everyone - hope to see you soon!!

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The Music will be with you, always

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The Music will be with you, always

From Adam McClelland, Erie Philharmonic Box Office Volunteer and member of the Board of Governors

In the beginning, there was music

Let's start at the beginning, shall we? My name is Adam McClelland, and I am a volunteer with the Erie Philharmonic. I am also on the Board of Governors (two years this month), but first and foremost, I am happy to say that I am a part of the Erie Phil's audience. For me, that's where the real beginning lies.

Over the last few months, where our society has experienced something never before seen in most of our lives, there has been a lot of time for introspection. One thing in my life, whose absence I have felt acutely, is that we aren't all together at The Warner Theater listening to our beloved orchestra playing beautiful and extraordinary music live on stage. Thankfully, everyone at the Erie Phil has made sure that the music keeps playing one way or another, through methods like the Erie Phil From Home series, the Friday Erie Phil Radio Hour on WQLN, and most recently, the Coffee Chats. I am very thankful that we have such a devoted group in the Staff, Music Director Daniel Meyer, and the Orchestra members who are all of one mind to make sure that we stay connected in a time that has made such connections a challenge. To use a Star Wars metaphor, music in all its forms is much like The Force, "It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together." Was there ever a more precise analogy for music? I think not.

A little history

I was thinking to myself just today that I can't recall a time in my life where music wasn't a part of my daily existence. Like so many of us, I have my parents to thank for this, in particular, my mother. She has always been a proponent of concert music in our family, and she's the one that got me started, not just on music, but also on the Erie Phil. Back in the halcyon days of the early '90s, my parents would make sure that my brothers and I went to the youth concerts every year, as well as the Friday night open rehearsals where possible and the occasional Saturday night concert as well. One of my clearer memories of those times was the stark difference in sound between our family's home stereo rig and a live performance. That's not to say that the home HiFi was lacking; on the contrary, it was excellent, but there's quite the gap between a recording on various media types and sitting in your favorite seat in a gorgeous temple of music. The other notable difference, especially in those days, was the stage presence of then conductor and music director, Eiji Oue. He was equal parts conductor and entertainer. He made the concerts memorable, and for that, I am forever grateful. The experiences in those youth concerts left an indelible mark on my young mind, and live concert music, as well as concert music in general, has grown to be one of the more essential aspects of my adult life. As time went on, we (my family and I) continued to attend concerts, my parents expanded their CD collection (thank you BMG), and I started my CD collection. Since I had my parent's library at my disposal, I branched out into film scores right away, and my first two CDs were Basil Poledouris' score to The Hunt for Red October and John William's score to Schindler's List. It was listening to the Erie Phil that inspired most of my symphonic CD purchases, and that practice persists into the present.

 The opportunity of a lifetime

I know that it's a little cliche, but you hear people talk about a moment in their lives when they were presented with the "opportunity of a lifetime." I know it all sounds very dramatic, but I don't know how else to describe it. When I was a student at the Erie Institute of Technology in 2002, I was asked, by my instructor, to "help out" at a concert. At the time, my teacher, the eldest son of the Erie Phil's box office manager (Bonnie Krause), got me started as a volunteer. As will happen, careers begin to take off, and in this case, my instructor was looking ahead to his professional future in IT, and it didn't seem to be in the Erie area. Thus, he needed a replacement for himself, and it was in this capacity that I started helping out at the box office table on concert nights during the 2002-2003 season. In those days, we had the ticket printer from the office (they only had one then), and two laptops. They were connected in a small peer-to-peer network, one machine functioning as a server and the other as a client. The Erie Phil, like so many other orchestras, used a program called WinTix, and it was a finicky beast that required a lot of attention. My job was to make sure that it stayed running all evening, and when I wasn't working on the technology, I enjoyed my other role as ticket tearer and greeter. There's nothing quite like the moment when the Warner's State Street lobby doors open, and all of the people waiting in the vestibule spill into the grand entrance hall. Even better still is if someone is walking into The Warner for the first time. The head snaps up to look at the high-arched ceiling's intricate artwork, and then the "oo's" and "aah's" inevitably follow. This is particularly true at Youth Concerts, and yes, I did the same thing.

A new beginning

Volunteering for the Erie Phil continues to be a passion of mine, and that's something that I now share with my sister. She started volunteering with me several years ago, and we have a lot of fun working concerts together. There have been many staffers who have come and gone over the years, but as most of you may recall, several positions within the Erie Phil's front office turned over at the same time a few short years ago. This gave birth to the current staff. It wasn't long after the new people arrived that things began to change (for the better), and one of those changes, for better or worse, was my addition to the roster of people behind the box office table selling tickets. It's a wonderful experience and a privilege to interact with our patrons, new or familiar, and to work alongside the regular staff. It brings a smile to my face to see many people from the local community and the region at large come out to hear the Erie Philharmonic perform. A couple of years ago, the staff put me up for a position on the Board of Governors to make my relationship with the Erie Phil "official," as Executive Director Steve Weiser put it, and it's an area in which I am still learning and growing. To say that I was a little shocked is an understatement, but it's an honor to be involved and an exciting experience thus far. The most significant part of this move, for me, has been the opportunity to do more, where I can, to make sure that the organization I love continues to persist into the future for other young people, like I once was, to fall in love with music in much the same way that I did.

 A concert for the ages

Any person who attends a Phil concert could take the United States Postal Service creed as their own, for they too seem to hold to the statement that, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers [concertgoers] from the swift completion of their appointed rounds [concert attendance]." Anyone that lives in the Erie area knows that we can see all four seasons within a day, and concert nights are no different. It takes quite the weather system to prevent the Erie Phil from performing, and it takes the City closing downtown to keep our audience away from their seats. It's hard to pinpoint a particular experience with the Phil over the years as a favorite. The whole of the 100th anniversary season was remarkable, and the season I got to be in the Erie Philharmonic Chorus was a personal high watermark. Still, if I had to pick one concert or musical performance that rises above the rest, it was one that happened on a dark and stormy night.

As I mentioned earlier, Erie Phil concerts happen in all sorts of weather, but one night, in particular, stands out in recent memory. The evening was blustery, to say the least, and a piece I had never heard was on the program. That piece was Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini (Symphonic Fantasy after Dante, Op. 32). The work is a symphonic poem that tells the tragic tale of Francesca da Rimini, a beautiful woman who was immortalized in Dante's Divine Comedy. In the fifth canto of Inferno, Dante, the narrator, encounters the spirit of Francesca, and Tchaikovsky's work puts her story to some of the most beautifully tragic music you'll ever hear. In the story, Francesca falls in love with the handsome brother of her cruel husband, and it was through this affair that she came to be a spirit trapped in the depths of hell, which is where she meets Dante. Her husband discovered the relationship and killed both Francesca and her lover, and Tchaikovsky masterfully captured this tale in music. If you've never heard it, I would highly recommend giving it a listen. The only recording that I have heard that comes close to what was performed at The Warner that night was recorded live by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.

Concerning the weather I mentioned earlier, there is a depiction of hell-winds in the work that are primarily played by the string section of the orchestra. As the piece reaches its climax, the weather outside The Warner got in on the action that was taking place on stage. The orchestra was playing with particular vigor that night. In the final moments of the piece, as the orchestra played with fiery energy almost not to be believed possible, Daniel Meyer was like a man possessed. He was all over the podium, leaping from one corner to the other, hair flying in all directions. He and the orchestra expertly captured what was going on in the music. The winds on stage howled with incredible force and the ones outside, not to be outdone, didn't just howl, they screamed and shook the building so that we, the audience, could hear the rigging over the stage rattling above the symphonic din! The effect was electric. As Mr. Meyer and the orchestra brought the piece crashing, with stunning precision, to its dramatic conclusion, the audience roared its approval before the last note had a chance to fade. That spectacular moment was one example of many over the years as to why it is essential to experience a live orchestral performance. You never know what might happen. I am eternally grateful to be a part of the Erie Phil family and to those who got me started.

I look forward to being together with all of you again as we sit in awe of our superb orchestra bearing witness as they do what they do best.  “The Music will be with you, always.”

Thank you to my extended family: Steve, Lisa, Brigit, Jennifer, Megan, and Chris, for all that you do and for allowing me to be an honorary member of the staff.

Sincerely,

Adam McClelland
Erie Philharmonic Box Office Volunteer and member of the Board of Governors

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