Sure there’s the exceptional music and performing pieces written by Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky — you name it. Concerts that include concertos and symphonies and overtures, pop and classical.
After all, that’s what’s expected from a symphony of any stature.
When it comes to the Nittany Valley Symphony, however, it’s not just the music but also the family aspect that comes through and takes some by surprise. And with this symphony, “family” means in the literal sense and also the atmosphere created by the members who make up an orchestra that is celebrating its 50th anniversary with the 2016-17 season, appropriately titled “Fantastic at Fifty!”
“Many of the musicians and [music director and conductor] Michael Jinbo have played together for a long time … and that, in and of itself, fosters a family feeling,” says executive director Roberta Strebel, who is starting her 10th season with the symphony.
She lists the actual family members who are part of today’s orchestra. There’s violinist Eileen Christman and her brother, Roger, who is a cellist. Then there are several husband-and-wife pairings: Tom (violin) and Shirley (cello) Fonda, Eleanor (violin) and Steve (viola) Schiff, Bob and Maxine Levin (violinists), Jean (clarinet) and John (bassoon) Balogh, Herb (principal trumpet) and Susan (trombone) McKinstry, Diane Gold (principal flute, and an original member) and Smith (principal clarinet and assistant conductor) Toulson, Barry (principal oboe) and Susan (flute) Kroeker, and Matt Patten (principal horn) and Svetlana Rodionova (a pianist who has performed as a soloist with the symphony).
Maybe having family members work together is to be expected, too, from an organization that is hitting its golden anniversary. But then talk with violist Matthew Kumjian, a 30-year-old from Virginia Beach who moved to State College in January 2014 and began performing with the symphony a month later.
“I was struck by how close-knit many of the musicians in NVS are,” he says. “Many have been playing in the orchestra together for numerous years. Yet, as a newcomer, I was greeted as one of the ‘family’ right from the beginning. This welcoming spirit meant a lot to me.”
Juliette Greer has twice won the symphony’s Ann Keller Young Soloist Competition, named for one of the active founders of the symphony who died in 1999. The 17-year-old violinist has performed with the symphony as a soloist and as part of the string section.
“Even though I played with Central PA Youth Orchestra for five years, being in the NVS violin section brought me a very different musical fulfillment,” says Greer, who graduated from State High this summer and is a freshman at the New England Conservatory of Music. “It was more like a family, several generations sharing the special moments that only music can bring, including struggling to get it right! It was inspiring to be a part of such a ‘we’re in this together’ attitude ….”
When Diane Gold Toulson was diagnosed with cancer about six years ago, her extended symphony family came through for her.
“Flutist Cathy Herrera organized dinners for my family during the roughest times of chemo,” she says, “and I feel so grateful for the orchestra family.”
It’s a family Toulson has been with since it began in 1967 during the first Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. At the time, a chamber music group called the Music Guild formed the “nucleus of the first program at the first Arts Festival.” Toulson says small groups performed at what is now Esber Recital Hall, and the program ended with a larger group performing Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 for string ensemble, solo flute (Toulson was the flutist), and solo harpsichord.
The 17-member group performed at the second Arts Festival in 1968, and it soon formed the State College Chamber Orchestra, with Ernest Peterson, a graduate student studying meteorology at Penn State, conducting. According to a story in the November 1968 issue of Town&Gown, the orchestra “plans to present two or three concerts each year and eventually would like to add a woodwind and brass section in order to perform classical symphonies.”
Those sections, obviously, were added, as were a few more concerts — the symphony now has six each season, many of which are performed at Eisenhower Auditorium. Violinist Jan Diehl, who continues to perform with the symphony, remembers some of the early concerts.
“We volunteered to play almost anywhere,” she says. “We appeared as a string group playing Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in a church, as a ‘touring’ orchestra for several concerts at Raystown Lake, complete with flies — hard to play and shoo them away — a few concerts at Lewistown Steel, and locally.”
In the late 1980s, the symphony had grown and had 55 to 60 members (which is approximately the number it has currently), and it hired its first paid conductor in Barbara Yahr, who also had been assistant manager of the Bronx Opera Company and instructor of conducting at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
In 1990, the symphony performed a children’s concert with guest conductor Michael Jinbo. A few months later, Yahr left to become the assistant conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony, and Nittany Valley Symphony hired Jinbo to replace her.
“I had two main goals,” Jinbo says. “One goal was for the orchestra to perform a wide variety of works that stretched their ability and improve their technical level of playing. I felt that my job was not only to cater to the audience but to satisfy the musical lives of the players. The other goal was to increase audience size and support for the orchestra. We’ve had success in both areas, though audience size and support has ebbed and flowed over the years.”
The 2016-17 season will be Jinbo’s 27th of directing the symphony. Diane Gold Toulson says he has led the symphony into performing larger, more challenging pieces than it had done before his arrival.
Newer members have become quickly impressed with Jinbo’s leadership.
“I have played under a number of different conductors, and what strikes me about Michael Jinbo is how clear his vision is for every single piece he conducts,” says bass trombonist Nick Smarcz, who joined the symphony last September. “It’s great to sit in the orchestra under him and watch how he shapes each phrase. He is not afraid to try things faster, louder, slower, softer. He knows what he wants, but he also is not afraid to push the musical envelope from time to time.
“The first rehearsal with new music after a concert, he comes in more prepared than any conductor I’ve ever seen.”
Jinbo says he thinks the symphony has enhanced the community in many ways, especially being an outlet for musicians in the area. He also says when he thinks of his first 26 seasons with the symphony, many performances stand out to him.
“We’ve performed with many excellent soloists and with other fine local organizations, such as State College Choral Society and the Nittany Valley Children’s Choir,” he says. “I enjoyed the many opportunities to conduct Mahler symphonies with the orchestra. Our presentation of live music with Charlie Chaplin’s film, City Lights, is another fond memory. For several years we presented staged musicals, such as The Music Man, Guys and Dolls, On the Town, My Fair Lady, Hello Dolly!, and The King and I. Though they were exhausting endeavors, I truly enjoyed the opportunity to both conduct and stage direct the musicals.”
When he’s asked about his future plans for the symphony, he says he obviously wants to bring more people to the concerts and solidify the audience base and finances.
One way the symphony is trying to solidify the audience base — both now and for the future — has been through its outreach programs, particularly with younger people. The symphony’s youth outreach includes the Youth Flute Choir, which “allows students to explore music written for groups of flutists in a friendly, challenging, and educational atmosphere,” and it performs several times during the year; the State College Concert Percussion Academy was founded 10 years ago by Dr. James Lattern, professor of music at Juniata College and principal percussionist of the Altoona Symphony Orchestra; NOTES (Nittany Valley Symphony Outreaching Traveling Educating Series) helps students who may be in schools that have “minimal music programs, no orchestras, and no classical music opportunities” and exposes these students to classical music in a “fun-filled, educational atmosphere;” and the Ann Keller Young Soloist Competition, which is held each fall, and the winner performs with the symphony during its annual family concert in winter.
The competition has been a springboard for many young musicians to continue their pursuits in music. Violinist John Thayer won the competition in 1993 and is now the concertmaster for the San Diego Symphony. Cellist Stephen Feldman won in 1983 and is a music professor in Arkansas. Sarah Shafer won in 2004 as a pianist, and she’s now a renowned soprano performer who tours across the country.
“The Ann Keller Competition has given me the opportunity to play a solo work with the orchestra three times throughout my high school career,” Greer says. “All three performances have been major milestones in my development as a violinist and musician. … It is a sheer joy and privilege to play with a group of people who love and appreciate music with all their heart and encourage and support young soloists’ success and development.”
Jinbo and symphony members have sheer pride when they think about the orchestra’s performing for a half-century, and they have hope for a strong future for the organization they love.
“It’s no small feat for a symphony to last for 50 years, and it would be a shame if it didn’t thrive far into the future,” Jinbo says. “I hope the Nittany Valley Symphony will thrive well past my tenure.”
Diane Gold Toulson adds, “My emotion is total pride in helping start this orchestra 50 years ago and seeing how far it has grown since the humble beginnings. … I now have a 1-year-old great-granddaughter and hope music will become part of her life — it can be flute or any instrument at all. We musicians don’t really stop, because music is part of our soul and body.”
