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Seventy Five Years of the KSO: A Legacy of Symphonic Excellence

For 75 years, live symphonic music has been one of the good things about life in Knoxville. The vision of a symphony orchestra for Knoxville, however, began to take shape in the dawn of the 20th century.

 
Chapter 1 Bertha Walburn Clark: A Cultural Pioneer (1925-1946)
Chapter 2 Lamar Stringfield: A Natural Showman (1946-1947)
Chapter 3 David Van Vactor: Guiding the KSO toward Maturity (1947-1972)
Chapter 4 Arpad Joó: The Wunderkind Director (1973-1978)
Chapter 5 Zoltán Rozsnyai: Orchestrating New Growth for the KSO (1978 - 1985)
Chapter 6 Kirk Trevor: Entrepreneurial Maestro (1985-2003) (Coming Soon)
Chapter 7 Lucas Richman (2003 - present) (Coming Soon)
Chapter 8 The Legacy Continues (Coming Soon)

 

Bertha Walburn Clark: A Cultural Pioneer

The founder and first conductor of the KSO was Bertha Walburn Clark, a handsome, snowy-haired woman who was a cultural force in Knoxville for nearly 70 years. Born Bertha Roth in Ohio in 1882, she shared with her German parents a great love of music. They gave her professional training in violin and voice, and she maximized her natural talents with a disciplined practice. In 1902 Miss Roth graduated from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Emerging from this training in music, she would maintain high standards as a teacher and conductor, and she would expect her student and orchestra musicians to follow suit.

A year after her graduation from the conservatory, she and her family moved to Knoxville. Along with her sister, Olive, she opened a violin and viola studio at 708 North Third Avenue. There were more than 70 music studios listed in the Knoxville directory at that time, but Miss Roth’s exceptional talent brought her recognition, both as a violinist and as a teacher. She was frequently invited to perform at area churches and clubs, and a 1903 newspaper review said that she had “captured our city” with her voice and violin.    

Music was always at the forefront of her life. Her marriage to a painter and craftsman, Randall Walburn, and the arrival of their children Elsa and Lenore, took their place alongside her music career. Mrs. Walburn always had opportunities to work. She once said, “Every important occasion in life must have music; you can’t live without it.”

One such occasion was the gala 1910 opening of the Atkin Hotel (it stood at the current location of the Regas Restaurant parking lot), which would become Knoxville’s most fashionable place to dine and take tea. Owner C. B. Atkin, a connoisseur of classical music, invited the city’s best musicians, including Mrs. Walburn, to perform. Charmed by the violinist’s performance and her beauty, Atkin extended her performing engagement indefinitely. To bring variety to her dinner music, Mrs. Walburn recruited three of her advanced students to form a string quartet. Prominent local musicians like Harold Clark, Harry Shugart, George Peters and Pearl Hawkins eventually expanded Mrs. Walburn’s ensemble. Miss Pomeroy Graves and other area music teachers supported the group in spirit and supplied students and funds when they were able.

The small ensemble that delighted Knoxville audiences also proved popular with sophisticated visitors to the city. Conductor Walter Damrosch was in town waiting to give a concert with his own orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, when he dined at the Atkin Hotel. After listening to the ensemble, he sent the following note to Mrs. Walburn: “Usually when we are away from New York, we hurry through our meals to escape the hotel music, but we have stayed on here half an hour to listen to your orchestra. I have never heard a woman get such tones from a violin.” The composer Victor Herbert was another musical great who complimented Mrs. Walburn’s music, especially her rendition of one of his own works. Despite this gratifying recognition, Mrs. Walburn was aware in those early days that her “orchestra” was woefully incomplete. Filling out the sections with the needed instruments was her first goal. Since the ensemble had started as a string quartet it was in need of woodwinds and brass. Finding capable musicians was difficult; anyone who qualified by training or talent and could read music was invited to join. No one was paid; in fact, the members of the orchestra paid dues of 50 cents each month to buy their music.

While the orchestra was a decidedly amateur group, its members were very dedicated to their music. Believing as she did that “music is as vital to a community as the flow of commerce,” Mrs. Walburn strove to ensure that the orchestra would flourish. She knew that the presence of such a group could foster and encourage the development of musicians in Knoxville. By giving her pupils and local musicians a place to exhibit their talents, she was able to upgrade performance standards and generate community support.

To this end she dedicated her life. The orchestra had to make do with rehearsal and concert halls that had poor acoustics. Through weekly rehearsals, she coaxed the best from each player and gradually refined the orchestra’s performance. She demanded a lot, and she was never satisfied if the orchestra didn’t play up to her expectations. The musicians respected and admired her for it, feeling that the hard work was well worth it. One musician recalls that the thrill of playing together and hearing those wonderful tones resonate around the room was reward enough.

Another person who enjoyed playing in Mrs. Walburn’s “Little Symphony” was the valued flute and cello player Harold Clark. Mrs. Walburn and Mr. Clark made many public appearances as a violin-flute duo. Following her husband’s death, Mrs. Walburn married Mr. Clark in 1921. It was a long and happy marriage centered around the music that both partners loved. Mrs. Clark’s daughters by her first marriage, Elsa and Lenore Walburn, received extensive musical training. Elsa played the piano, often with the orchestra, and Lenore was a cellist. Lenore’s son, Keith Walburn Bryan, now music professor emeritus at University of Michigan, became an excellent flutist and appeared twice as soloist with the KSO, once during the orchestra’s 50th season celebration in 1984-85.

Mrs. Clark’s orchestra gave its first public concert in 1925. A series of three programs was given in 1926 under the billing The Walburn Clark Little Symphony. The first, a free concert, was given by the 25-piece orchestra, with guest soloist, cellist Louisa Knowlton, in the drawing room-like atmosphere of the Farragut Hotel (today a mix of Gay Street retail stores and residences). One week later, surrounded by soft lights and cut flowers at the same location, the orchestra gave a benefit concert. This began a tradition of charity concerts that gave the orchestra an opportunity to be seen and heard, and such events encouraged the community’s good will and support. Early benefit concerts were given to support The Sunshine Society (1930), The News Sentinel Empty Stocking Fund (1931, 1933), St. John’s Orphanage (1936), and the East Tennessee Cancer Clinic of St. Mary’s (1937).

At the Lyric Theatre (on the southeast corner of Gay Street at Cumberland Avenue where First Tennessee Bank stands today), in May 1930, The Young Business Men’s Club of Knoxville put up $100 to sponsor a benefit for the orchestra itself. This was done to encourage the community’s support, which up to that point had been sporadic and limited. All three balconies of the Lyric Theatre were packed on that hot afternoon, but the anticipated financial support was not forthcoming. The audience was behind the musicians in spirit, but the Depression had cut back everyone’s ability to give. Still, recognition by the business community boosted the orchestra’s morale. 

With the establishment of Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933, this region’s economy and its orchestra both received an important boost. Engineers and administrators from all over the country arrived here, and their numbers included several professionally trained musicians. These newly settled TVA employees were delighted to find an orchestra willing to include them, for many were far from home and lonely without their families. A number of them brought administrative skills which were soon utilized to reorganize the management of the orchestra. In those days, all orchestra personnel helped with the behind-the-scenes preparation for each concert. But over the years, Mrs. Clark assumed the burden of managing the total operation. She arranged the programs and concerts, hired and hosted guest artists, purchased or rented music scores, designed and printed tickets and programs, rented halls, led rehearsals, supervised ticket sales and publicity and smoothed ruffled feathers along the way.

In 1935 a board of three directors was elected from the members of the orchestra to manage the group’s business affairs, freeing Mrs. Clark to concentrate on conducting the music that would help carry them through trying times. Chartered with the state as a nonprofit institution, the group acquired its official name, Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. For the first time, the conductor was paid ($50 per concert), formal auditions were held and the orchestra members no longer had to pay dues. The KSO held its first official concert on November 24, 1935, performing for an audience of 300 at Church Street Methodist Church. Miss Evelyn Miller (who later founded an annual Young Pianist Series of concerts that still continues today) was the featured soloist, playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, K. 466, which she reprised with the orchestra during its 50th season celebration. Miss Miller passed away February 5, 2006.

When World War II broke out in 1939, it put some unusual pressures on the KSO. Katherine Moore noted the problems in a 1942 Knoxville Journal article: “The effect of the present war has been keenly felt by the orchestra. Many members are now serving in the armed services, new musical instruments are heavily taxed, transportation is an increasing problem…But the members of the orchestra, the Society, and the governing board all hold to the belief that when hearts are heavy and troubled and war clouds hang low, music becomes a solace and refuge and refreshes and renews hope and courage.”    Despite these pressures, the orchestra continued to grow without incurring deficits. All the years of hard work had begun to pay off and success followed Mrs. Clark’s orchestra into the 1940s. Fifty musicians now swelled the ranks of the symphony, which was playing two or three concerts each season to an annual audience numbering 700. Guest artists of considerable stature, including Wiktor Labunski, Eugenia Buxton, Signe Gulbrandsen, Karl Kuersteiner, and Gloria Perkins, appeared with the orchestra.

By summer 1941, the orchestra had achieved artistic success and financial stability fully deserving of civic support, and it received just that with the formation of the Knoxville Symphony Society. The Society was organized to provide business management and financial support, with its prime objectives being “to sustain symphonic music in Knoxville, to provide an outlet for local talent, and to present symphonic programs to all music lovers.” It promised to underwrite the affairs of the symphony by seeking sponsors and raising funds and to broaden the KSO’s audience by promoting ticket sales. The first concert to take place under the auspices of the Knoxville Symphony Society was held on that infamous day, Sunday, December 7, 1941. Just hours before the concert, the terrifying news of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor had spread across America. Concertgoers found solace and refuge in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the orchestra piece that was to become the universal symbol of Allied unity, purpose and victory during the next four years. It was an uncanny coincidence that Mrs. Clark had planned to perform the Beethoven masterwork on that particular day, and the need for inspiring music heightened its impact. One can imagine the emotional effect that swept through the Bijou Theatre when the audience begged for an encore and the orchestra responded with the thrilling strains of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

When the war came to a close, Mrs. Clark decided to step down as conductor. She urged the board to search for her replacement and in 1946 relinquished the baton to Lamar Stringfield. She and Mr. Clark continued to play in the orchestra until 1962, she as principal violist and he as a cellist. She served on the Society’s Board of Directors until her death in 1972 at age 89. Mr. Clark made a gift to the Society in 1986 of his very fine cello and collection of bows, passing away in 1988 at age 94. Today, Mrs. Clark’s grandson, flutist Keith Walburn Clark, and his wife, pianist Karen Keys, both of whom have performed as soloists with the KSO, remain committed to the orchestra’s future. The couple has permanently endowed, in their names, the orchestra’s principal flute chair, held since 2001 by Nadine Hur.

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This chapter, Bertha Walburn Clark: A Cultural Pioneer, is substantially reprinted from Fifty Years of the KSO: A Legacy of Symphonic Excellence published in 1984. Edited and revised by Rudy Ennis. © 1984 and 2010 Knoxville Symphony Society. All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part without written consent from the Knoxville Symphony Society, 100 S. Gay Street, Suite 302, Knoxville, Tennessee 37902.

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Lamar Stringfield: A Natural Showman

Lamar Stringfield, a debonair, enthusiastic, and ambitious musician from Charlotte, North Carolina, became the KSO’s second conductor, beginning a short tenure in April 1946. For several reasons, he was a natural choice to continue the work of Mrs. Clark. He was a friend of the Clarks’s: Mr. Clark had given him his first flute lessons while both were serving in the armed forces overseas in World War I. After leaving the military service, Mr. Stringfield studied under Georges Barrere at the Institute of Musical Art in New York. His experience as the organizer and first conductor of the North Carolina Symphony at Raleigh gave him insight into the problems and potentials of a young, amateur orchestra like the KSO. He was also well qualified as a director of music, for his symphonic suite, From the Southern Mountains,won him the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1928. This work was performed during the KSO’s 50th anniversary season, at the orchestra’s 8th Annual Free Family Outdoor Concert on Sunday, September 16, 1984 in the Tennessee Amphitheater at World’s Fair Park with Zoltan Rozsnyai conducting. Mr. Stringfield knew contemporary music, having conducted at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and he was the founder of the North Carolina Institute of Folk Music. Traditional mountain music was close to his heart.

Essentially a classicist, Mr. Stringfield was widely known for his Brahms and Bach interpretations. Still, he believed in programming something for everyone. He once said, “Concerts, after all, are for enjoyment—not just for education.” His promise to present everything from classical music to contemporary pops to mountain music seemed to assure continued growth and audience expansion for the orchestra. He had audience appeal as well: Mr. Stringfield’s personal exuberance made him a natural showman. Katherine Moore recalls that for his first concert in October 1946, “he had the young and lovely pianist Miss Dorothy Hummel perform Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue wearing a blue sequined gown, with a host of blue spotlights trained on her keyboard.” Not only did the KSO have its first sellout crowd, but that season, the total audience soared to 4,000. For the first time, concert pairs (repeat performances of a program) were given.

Under Mr. Stringfield the orchestra grew to include 65 members, with a number of players coming from Oak Ridge to rehearse and perform in concerts. It was also during his tenure that the Knoxville Symphony Society changed its charter to become a nonprofit educational organization for the encouragement of all the arts in the community. Annual fund drives and fund-raising events were initiated by the Society to provide compensation for the players and to increase the number and types of programs offered.

Mr. Stringfield returned to North Carolina at the end of the 1946-47 season, leaving the KSO on firm footing as a growing community orchestra. He died at Asheville in 1959 at age 61.

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This chapter, Lamar Stringfield: A Natural Showman, is substantially reprinted from Fifty Years of the KSO: A Legacy of Symphonic Excellence published in 1984. Edited by Rudy Ennis. © 1984 and 2010 Knoxville Symphony Society. All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part without written consent from the Knoxville Symphony Society, 100 S. Gay Street, Suite 302, Knoxville, Tennessee 37902.

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David Van Vactor: Guiding the KSO toward Maturity

When Lamar Stringfield closed the 12th season of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra (1946-1947), he had brought the group to the brink of a great leap forward. The search began for a conductor who could lead the KSO through a period of expansion and artistic growth.

It was an early dream of members of the symphony board that somehow the orchestra and the University of Tennessee could join forces for each other’s mutual benefit. The orchestra needed a distinguished, academically qualified conductor, and the university was ready to establish a department of music in the college of Liberal Arts. Public interest and speculation ran high as many worthy candidates for the dual position came for interviews.

In midsummer 1947, the speculation came to an end; it was jointly announced by the symphony board and the university that the eminent conductor-composer-flutist David Van Vactor would take over the helm of the orchestra and organize a department of music at the university. His arrival marked the beginning of 25 years of growth, achievement, and recognition for the KSO.

David Van Vactor was born in 1906 in Plymouth, Indiana, where he began his study of the flute. He was talented in several fields, and honors in the sciences led him to Northwestern University, where he began premedical studies. But the lure of music and his increasing proficiency as a flutist persuaded him to switch to the School of Music at Northwestern. In 1929 he went to Vienna to study flute with Josef Nierdermayr. At that time he also met Virginia Landreth of Chicago.

In 1931 Mr. Van Vactor went to Paris to study with world-famous flutist Marcel Moyse. He also studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and Paul Dukas (the latter composer is famous for his work The Sorcerer’s Apprentice). On his return from Europe in May, Mr. Van Vactor married Virginia Landreth and soon began a 13-year engagement as a flutist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In time he became an assistant to conductor Frederick Stock, and his reputation as a composer of stature took hold. In 1937 his Symphony in D won the composition competition sponsored by the New York Philharmonic, and in 1939 it was premiered by that orchestra with Mr. Van Vactor conducting to favorable reviews.

From 1936 until 1943 he taught theory at Northwestern University and conducted the Chicago Symphony’s chamber orchestra. After that, Mr. Van Vactor spent five years as assistant conductor of the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra. At the same time, he served as a faculty member at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music. He continued to write a full range of orchestral pieces, along with works for chorus and solo voice, and for band.

When Mr. Van Vactor arrived in Knoxville in late summer 1947, he immediately began to staff his department at the university; and, as one fine musician after another arrived to join the faculty, the KSO began to enjoy the luxury of having superb musicians in every section of the orchestra. Among the first faculty members were violinist William Starr, who was named concertmaster of the orchestra, and his wife, Constance, a fine pianist who also played viola in the orchestra. George DeVine and his wife, June, played in the orchestra (both were bassoonists), and Mr. DeVine also served as librarian and wrote program notes for all the orchestra’s concerts. Following inauguration of the KSO’s Chamber Classics series in 1981, Mr. DeVine continued to write the notes for the Masterworks series through September 1987. He passed away in summer 1999 at age 84.

Under Mr. Van Vactor’s direction, a music appreciation series called Concerts for Children was begun in 1949. A symphony publication noted that by 1955 this series had brought symphonic music into the lives of over 84,000 school children from the Knoxville area. It was organized by Miss Evelyn Miller and sponsored by the Federated Women’s Club and area music clubs. Symphony members help the children prepare for the concerts by writing booklets that outlined ways in which the upcoming concert music could be integrated into every school subject. At the concerts, the children saw live performances of music geared to their interests. They were able to see and hear each instrument, learn about the various sections of the orchestra, and gain insight into the music while enjoying the total production. This program won national recognition, and its educational materials were used as prototypes for other such concerts.

Young people were encouraged in their musical efforts through the Competition for Composers and Soloists. The winners’s compositions were orchestrated by Mr. Van Vactor and then performed at the Concerts for Children. These concerts were an absolute delight to the composers and their young audiences. Many winners went on to achieve considerable status as soloists and composers.

Mr. Van Vactor felt that the symphony had an obligation to develop musical abilities within the community. The KSO offered talented music students and local musicians (who were also doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, housewives) a chance to play in an orchestra as nonprofessionals. Thus, they would have the opportunity to learn from the professional musicians on the university faculty.

An extraordinary scholarship program for young musicians was initiated. Through the years, one of Mr. Van Vactor’s favorite projects was the encouragement of young talent through grants for study with outstanding teachers. In his early years as a conductor of the KSO, he and Mrs. Van Vactor paid for many grants personally. They also purchased many instruments for deserving students. At the heart of all the scholarship help was the hope that fine young performers would stay in the Knoxville area and be a constant source of resident talent for the symphony. Mr. Van Vactor often pointed out that his efforts to recruit young musicians were as intense as those employed by the university to recruit gifted athletes.

Another achievement that Mr. Van Vactor spoke of with great pride was the orchestra library he founded in 1949. As the KSO performed each new piece of music, the scores were purchased rather than rented. This practice initially caused some fiscal concerns for some members of the Board and staff, but it proved to be an economical course in the long run with the gradual acquisition of an immense asset – a performance library that is enhanced in value and utility with each passing year.

In March 1952, a women’s auxiliary was founded to support the symphony. The Van Vactors brought expertise in organizing the guild and its projects from their work with the famous Chicago Symphony Women’s Association. In 1981 the Women’s Guild changed its name to the Knoxville Symphony League. One of the League’s first goals was to raise $10,000 for grants to young people in all the musical arts. College students were awarded their tuition or limited financial assistance to study. High school students were offered lessons and an opportunity to play in the student orchestra at the university. Even some grammar school students of unusual talent were assisted.

The 20th KSO season (1954-55) marked the first time that an opera featuring all-local singers and musicians had ever been given a fully-staged production in Knoxville. The opera selected, Richard Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, opened to standing-room-only crowds at UT Alumni Auditorium. The performance was so well received that the orchestra and singers staged Giuseppe Verdi’s tragic opera La traviata the following season.

Mr. Van Vactor’s own immensely popular cantata, The New Light, was given its first performance in December 1954 by the symphony and the University of Tennessee Chorus, directed by Ambrose Holford. Performances of George Frideric Handel’s Messiah also became a December tradition for a number of years for the orchestra, area soloists, and massed choirs of civic, college and church groups.

By the arrival of the 22nd season (1956-57), the orchestra had gained national recognition. It had been offered a tour of Central and South America, it had presented internationally known soloists, and it was at last proficient enough to perform the full range of symphonic works. Accordingly, the support of the community was firm and enthusiastic. One impressive display of the orchestra’s musical maturity came on March 26, 1957, when the KSO participated in East Tennessee’s first live performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D Minor (“Choral”). Also featured in this grand undertaking were Christine Cardillo, soprano; Ambrose Holford, tenor; Edward Zambara, bass-baritone; Barbara Blair, contralto; and the Knoxville Choral Society. It may be noted in passing that many members of the orchestra had never before played the work, nor had numbers of those in the audience ever heard it performed live. The packed house added excitement to the occasion. Another highlight of the impressive 22nd season came when the orchestra and UT Opera Workshop collaborated to present two fully-staged sold-out performances of the Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel. The production was scheduled again in the 27th season (1961-1962), the orchestra’s first season in the newly-constructed Knoxville Civic Auditorium, followed by three performances at educational concerts to enthusiastic schoolchildren.

The 23rd season (1957-1958) was highlighted by numerous awards for the orchestra and its conductor. Mr. Van Vactor was awarded a Fulbright grant for concerts for children in Knoxville and in Frankfurt, Germany, and he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to write a proposed opera, The Trojan Women. The orchestra itself won a three-year grant from the Ford Foundation for an American Music Commission Series, providing funds for the recording of three symphonic works.

The following season, the KSO was asked to take part in a film commissioned by the United States Information Agency for use throughout the world. Entitled Symphony Across the Land, it was directed by Le Roy Prinz (director of South Pacific and The Ten Commandments). The film featured music written by American composers, including Mr. Van Vactor, who had just completed his Symphony No. 2. The brochure for the premiere of the film noted: “Recognizing that the battle for men’s minds has extended into cultural competition, the purpose of this film is to correct the misconception that much of America is a musical desert. Such orchestras as those of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia have, of course, received worldwide recognition. Symphony Across the Land, therefore, features other orchestras from wide geographical areas, each of which represents an important aspect of American music.”

In the 26th season (1960-1961), the orchestra began its Connoisseur Concerts to include additional performances of contemporary music (a series lasting beyond Mr. Van Vactor’s tenure, until spring 1975). During the 1960s, the orchestra also collaborated on several impressive operatic programs. In the 29th season (1963-64), the symphony combined forces with the Barter Theater of Abingdon, Virginia, to present William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, completewith Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music, in celebration of the quadricentennial of the playwright’s birth. Critics called this one of the most dazzling performances ever offered to a Knoxville audience. In spring 1966, and again in 1967, the Knoxville Symphony Society presented six operas performed by the Metropolitan Opera National Company: Georges Bizet’s Carmen, Gioachino Rossini’s Cinderella, Madama Butterfly and La bohème by Giacomo Puccini, Verdi’s La traviata, and The Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Mozart. The 1967-68 season was highlighted by the KSO-sponsored arrival of the Boston Opera Company, with Sarah Caldwell conducting performances of Verdi’s Falstaff and Puccini’s Tosca.

In its 35th season (1969-70), the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra had a momentous occasion to observe: the 200th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven, born December 17, 1770. The musicians honored the master composer in a truly momentous way: over the course of that season, they performed all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies. The orchestra also presented tenor Richard Lewis in Fidelio; and pianist Rudolf Firkusny, long a KSO audience favorite, joined with the master’s Emperor Concerto.

By the time he left the KSO in 1972, Mr. Van Vactor had developed every facet of music throughout the community. The list of national and international soloists presented with the orchestra during his tenure was impressive, and a tremendous range of musical works had been added to the KSO repertoire. Following his retirement, Mr. Van Vactor was made Composer Laureate of Tennessee by the Tennessee General Assembly, the only person ever so named. He returned to the KSO podium during the 50th anniversary season in December 1984 to conduct a concert that opened with his fanfare, Salute to the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra,commissioned for the occasion, and concluded with Peter Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, the work with which Mr. Van Vactor concluded his very first concert with the KSO on October 21, 1947. Mr. Van Vactor passed away in 1994 at his home in Los Angeles, to where he and wife Virginia had moved to be near their daughter, Adriaen. He was 87.   

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This chapter, David Van Vactor: Guiding the KSO toward Maturity, is substantially reprinted from Fifty Years of the KSO: A Legacy of Symphonic Excellence published in 1984. Edited and revised by Rudy Ennis. © 1984 and 2010 Knoxville Symphony Society. All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part without written consent from the Knoxville Symphony Society, 100 S. Gay Street, Suite 302, Knoxville, Tennessee 37902.

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Arpad Joó: The Wunderkind Director

Many eyebrows and questions were raised when the Knoxville Symphony Society announced that it had hired a 25-year-old conductor for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. After interviewing one hundred applicants, they settled on a musical wunderkind from Budapest named Arpad Joó (pronounced “yeo”). When Mr. Joó guest-conducted the orchestra in spring 1973, his youth and inexperience were totally eclipsed by his musical dedication and podium presence. He projected such talent, energy, intensity, and musicianship that the members of the orchestra were won over immediately.

His ability with the orchestra and obvious commitment to music lent credence to the recommendations given by the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, perhaps this nation’s leading music school at a public university.  He was indeed “a most outstanding talent.” Hired for the KSO’s 1973-74 season, Mr. Joó accepted his first post as a fulltime orchestra conductor and took on the task entrusted to him by the Society: that of making the KSO a solid semiprofessional organization. It was a job for which Mr. Joó was well-prepared by his talents, training and personality, and he managed it successfully.

Arpad Joó was born into a musical family in Budapest in 1948. His mother was a concert pianist, and the younger Joó decided to study piano as well. At age nine, he made his debut in a piano recital at the Academy of Music in Budapest. He continued his studies at the Béla Bartók Conservatory of Music and the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, both in Budapest, where he was a private pupil of Zoltán Kodály.

His talents brought him international recognition and he was awarded many prizes. During his teens he won the Bartók-Liszt Competition in Budapest (1962) and the prize of the Festival de Montreux (1965), where critics hailed him as “a poet whose inspiration is limitless.” In 1967 Joó was awarded a scholarship to The Juilliard School. Two years later, he won the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Boston, which earned him a scholarship to Indiana University. There he was praised as one of the finest young conductors to complete graduate studies. As a student he built up an impressive repertoire of more than 25 major orchestral works and operas.

Mr. Joó arrived in Knoxville with the tenacious attitude of a young man in the prime of his career. He set forth to reorganize the orchestra by holding the first set of open auditions. Mr. Joó recalls that he “auditioned everybody.” Each member of the 65-piece orchestra had to demonstrate his or her musical competence in order to establish the right to remain. Mr. Joó’s reputation was so compelling that 138 local musicians auditioned for the privilege of playing under his direction. He rehired selectively, and he did not accept marginal players. To encourage professionalism, the orchestra paid all of its members, some for the first time.

Concerts given under Mr. Joó’s direction were well received. He expanded the orchestra’s repertoire, and through his personal contacts he was able to bring in such world-class guest artists as Lili Kraus, Janos Starker, Andras Kiss, and Mack McCray (twice) to perform with the KSO.  Knoxvillians were also impressed with the conductor’s performances as piano soloist in both of Liszt’s piano concertos (the Second Concerto on at least four occasions), the Concertino by Morton Gould, and Liszt’s Totentanz. To foster musical talent among the young people of the community, the Symphony League formed the Knoxville Youth Orchestra with Mr. Joó’s assistance in 1973. The youth orchestra was to be a training ground, providing high school-age students with the opportunity to play with a symphony. Dr. James Marable, a cellist in the KSO for a number of years, was its first conductor; he and his wife, Barbara, a violinist, were central to the success of this venture. At that time, Mr. Joó, recognizing the KSO’s progressive need for an assistant conductor, installed Dr. Marable in that post as well.

To promote the enjoyment of symphonic music among a broader audience, another educational project was developed during this period: lecture-demonstrations that were given in elementary schools. For many students, this was a first opportunity to see and touch symphonic instruments and to hear concert music. They learned that there was an appealing middle ground between “fiddling” and “longhaired music.”

Mr. Joó celebrated the 1976 American bicentennial by becoming a naturalized citizen and by conducting the KSO in a “Bicentennial Pops Concert” on March 11, 1976 as part of the orchestra’s subscription season. All six works on the program were by American composers: Leonard Bernstein, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Ferde Grofé, George Gershwin and David Van Vactor. Mr. Van Vactor’s Symphony No. 5 was given its world premiere. Commissioned by the Tennessee Arts Commission, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, this orchestral work took as its inspiration the story of Mr. Van Vactor’s ancestors who had fought in the Revolutionary War.  A performance of this symphony was videotaped and televised nationally by PBS.

Under Mr. Joó’s direction, the KSO grew rapidly in musical quality. And as the orchestra’s proficiency rose to meet its conductor’s expectations, the financial support of the community grew as well. Having led the orchestra through five significant years in its development, Mr. Joó felt the need to seek other challenges. He left after the 1977-78 season at a peak in the orchestra’s growth, being hired away by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, but not before he assisted the society in finding his successor.

Mr. Joó contributed greatly to the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, and he was determined to leave it in competent hands. The man he recommended to further the orchestra’s development was his friend, colleague and fellow countryman, Zoltán Rozsnyai, who had guest-conducted the KSO on two occasions during Mr. Joó’s tenure. Mr. Joó has returned to guest-conduct the KSO on two occasions, so far: on March 15, 1979, and again to open the 50th anniversary season on October 18 and 19, 1984. He now resides principally in London. In 1998 he founded, and continues as principal conductor of, the Budapest-based European Symphony Orchestra, and sustains a heavy schedule of guest-conductor appearances and tours, master classes, and recording projects.

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This chapter, Arpad Joó: The Wunderkind Director, is substantially reprinted from Fifty Years of the KSO: A Legacy of Symphonic Excellence published in 1984. Edited and revised by Rudy Ennis. © 1984 and 2010 Knoxville Symphony Society. All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part without written consent from the Knoxville Symphony Society, 100 S. Gay Street, Suite 302, Knoxville, Tennessee 37902.

 

Zoltán Rozsnyai: Orchestrating New Growth for the KSO

Zoltán Rozsnyai was chosen in 1978 as the conductor and music director who could best prepare the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra for the increased international attention it would garner as host orchestra for the 1982 World’s Fair.  Mr. Rozsnyai’s credentials were indeed impressive. He brought to Knoxville the talents of a seasoned musician whose international experience in conducting and developing orchestras spanned three decades.

Mr. Rozsnyai was born in 1926 into a musical family in Budapest, where both parents played the piano and his mother sang opera; his early childhood memories are permeated with music. Blessed with perfect pitch, an excellent memory, and a consuming love of music, he absorbed all his parents taught him. He made his piano debut at age five (playing Schumann’s “March of the Lead Soldier”) and began his professional career as a concert pianist when he was ten. He was molded by such musical mentors as Zoltán Kodály, Béla Bartók, and Ernő Dohnányi. During his teens Mr. Rozsnyai studied the fine arts, but his interest in the sciences was also strong. He studied electrical engineering and ham radio operation, and earned a pilot’s license at age 17. At age 24 he became the youngest music director ever appointed to lead the Debrecen Opera, Hungary’s second-largest opera company.  In 1954 he was made conductor of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Rozsnyai won a prize at the International Conductor’s Competition in Rome in May 1956. He fortuitously left Hungary, as did many of his countrymen, the same year when the political situation became dangerously unstable with the appearance of Soviet troops and tanks in Budapest. Settling in Vienna, he founded the Philharmonia Hungarica, an orchestra that included the very best musicians from among the hundreds in exile there from their Hungarian homeland.  During the next two years, the Philharmonia Hungarica toured Europe, the United States and Canada.  One of the 33 American cities to applaud this orchestra was Knoxville.

In a rare demonstration of Cold-War respect, Mr. Rozsnyai received Hungary’s Cultural Merit Star award, plus the coveted Hungarian Golden Cross, honoring him for his cultural achievements associated with the formation and touring of the Philharmonia Hungarica. West Berlin mayor Willy Brandt personally awarded him the Peace Bell of Berlin in 1958.

Mr. Rozsnyai became a New York resident in 1961 and a citizen of the United States in 1967. In this country he served as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein and as music director of symphony orchestras in Utica, Cleveland, and San Diego. His repertoire included an impressive array of contemporary works, many of them by American composers.  He was very much an international figure in the world of music, and he had guest-conducted, recorded, and filmed with the world’s top orchestras.  He was equally at home with the operatic (300 performances) and symphonic repertoires; and, he was a composer with over 40 orchestral compositions and film scores.

When Mr. Rozsnyai came to direct the KSO in preparation for the world-wide spotlight that would soon shine upon it, he approached the challenge from several angles.  Through his encouragement, a core of 16 fulltime professional string players was hired in 1981. The presence of this core accounted for a dramatic artistic advance and explosive increase in the number and kinds of services provided to the community by the KSO.  Mr. Rozsnyai set about to improve the technical proficiency of the initial string core players with, in his words, a “regular diet of technically difficult pieces from the German repertoire of Haydn, Handel, and Mozart, which demand disciplined playing from each player.”  Since the strings make up two-thirds of the total orchestra, the quality of the string playing largely determines the quality of an orchestra.  As Maestro Rozsnyai said, “[t]he collective education of the strings is essential to make each player play his best.”

An overriding goal for Mr. Rozsnyai was to keep the orchestra well balanced in tuning and power.  “If the members of the orchestra can hear each other,” he said, “they can play together and play in tune.”  Because of acoustical problems then experienced in the orchestra’s rehearsal and performance venue, Knoxville Civic Auditorium, one section could not always hear the others. The sound spectrum varied not only from one side of the stage to the other, but also from the podium to various points in the auditorium.  Early on in Mr. Rozsnyai’s tenure, acoustical ceilings and radiator clouds were placed in the auditorium, but after a while it was obvious that acoustical improvements would only come with a change in venue.

In summer 1979 Mr. Rozsnyai almost single-handedly pulled together the Knoxville Chamber Orchestra, later called the Knoxville Symphony Chamber Orchestra, by convincing a number of KSO musicians and a few others (including David Van Vactor recruited as a flutist) – 34 in all – to perform without compensation a concert from the chamber orchestra repertoire on July 21, 1979 at First Christian Church on Fifth Avenue at which no admission was charged. It was a revelation.  The performance was acoustically stunning and, at last, a Knoxville audience was able to hear just how good the KSO’s musicians had really become.   With the 16-member professional core added in 1981, the orchestra’s five-concert Chamber Classics series was inaugurated by the Society for the 1981-82 season at the acoustically superior Tennessee Theatre, and then moved in 1983-84 to the more intimate Bijou Theatre where it remains today. The ready-made solution of an acoustically suitable venue for the KSO was now obvious; however, it was not until the 1985-86 season, following Mr. Rozsnyai’s tenure, that the orchestra was able to effect a move of its Masterworks series to the Tennessee Theatre.

The orchestra had prepared well for the exciting opportunities presented to the KSO by the 1982 World’s Fair. It presented a dozen concerts that summer for both local audiences and visitors from around the globe. Six pops concerts performed at the Tennessee State Amphitheater on the fair site featured such popular performers as Peter Nero, Skitch Henderson, and Roberta Peters. Tennessee’s talented Governor (now U.S. Senator), Lamar Alexander, played the piano in concert with the KSO at the fair. Classical performances at the amphitheater included concerts with pianist Andre-Michel Schub, 1981 winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, and baritone John Cimino. Other KSO classical concerts at Knoxville Civic Auditorium during the World’s Fair featured renowned soloists Leonard Rose (cellist) and Isaac Stern (violinist).  Audiences were also treated to a marvelous international concert series on which appeared the London Symphony Orchestra and other major orchestras from Vienna, Prague, and Warsaw.

The musical education of area schoolchildren also received considerable emphasis during Mr. Rozsnyai’s term. This is due in part to the influence of his mentor, Zoltán Kodály, and to the precedent set by David Van Vactor, both of whom were adamant about the importance of music in the development of every child.  The presence of the 16 fulltime core members of the KSO made it possible to implement this philosophy to an unprecedented degree.  String quartets and more of the core musicians in 1983-84 presented lecture-demonstration programs in more than 65 area schools, plus educational presentations in Gatlinburg, Newport, and Oneida.  More than 10,000 fourth- through sixth-grade children attended the six Knoxville Symphony Young People’s Concerts offered in 1983-84.

The KSO’s 50th anniversary season in 1984-85 was not only a reflection on the orchestra’s growth and accomplishments. It also transitioned the Society, its orchestra, board, and audience to a new era as they auditioned in-concert five finalists, one of whom was to be selected as Mr. Rozsnyai’s successor. He resigned for much the same reason as he was hired by the KSO in 1978. A well-known and effective orchestra-builder, Mr. Rozsnyai accepted the challenge to assemble a first-rate orchestra of musicians from around the world to be known as the United States International University Orchestra based on the Scripps Ranch campus of International University at San Diego, California. In the celebratory fervor that marked his final season as the KSO’s fifth conductor, Maestro Rozsnyai left a tantalizing reminder of his keyboard prowess by performing Bach’s D-Minor Concerto, BWV 1052, on two programs, the February Masterworks series concerts on piano and the March Chamber Classics series concert two weeks later on harpsichord, each performance with particularly bravura, but quite different, improvised first-movement cadenzas.

Upon his return to San Diego (he was music director and conductor of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra from 1967 to 1971), Mr. Rozsnyai quickly came to lead the United States International University Orchestra to extraordinary acclaim in both the United States and Mexico before his unexpected death in 1990 at age 64. Before that fateful end, however, he returned to guest-conduct the KSO on three occasions: a sold-out Chamber Classics concert principally of music by Antonio Vivaldi on January 11, 1986 with guitarist Benjamin Bolt; a Masterworks series program just two months later, March 13 and 14, 1986; and January 15 and 16, 1987 on a Masterworks program featuring, again, a guitar soloist, Angel Romero.

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This chapter, Zoltán Rozsnyai: Orchestrating New Growth for the KSO, is substantially reprinted from Fifty Years of the KSO: A Legacy of Symphonic Excellence published in 1984. Edited and revised by Rudy Ennis. © 1984 and 2010 Knoxville Symphony Society. All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part without written consent from the Knoxville Symphony Society, 100 S. Gay Street, Suite 302, Knoxville, Tennessee 37902.

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