San Luis Obispo Symphony’s Newsletter

April 2024

An Evening in Vienna

April 27. 2024

Yikes! You forgot to purchase your tickets?! Phew, it’s not too late! Just click here to purchase tickets for the Gala. You don’t want to miss the most important social happening of the year! Mingle with old friends and make new friends at this once a year event in support of your  San Luis Obispo Symphony.

Can’t go? Never fear, you can still participate. 

In fact, you can purchase tickets right now for one of our Parties With a Purpose. These are intimate events scheduled throughout the spring and summer, hosted by Symphony supporters,  available in limited numbers at a set price.

Party Alert! 

The first one is scheduled for May 4, just one week after the Gala. It is The Ultimate Tour of  the Performing Arts Center, an inside look at the history and construction of our fabulous concert hall, led by Clif Swanson, one of the principal players in its development.

Other Parties include a celebration of Bastille Day (July 14) hosted by Cindy Marie Absey; a Painting Party in the Arroyo Grande studio of renowned artist, Robert Burridge (July 18); an early evening of magic, music and tapas (September 22); and a Dinner with the Maestro,
Andrew Sewell (September 30).

Get your tickets soon, before they sell out!

Symphony Musician Emelia “Emmie” Banninger, Contrabassoon

The morning of this interview Emmie was playing her bassoon “Perry” for a school performance with the Santa Maria Philharmonic. Perry was named after the peregrine falcon, because “They are impressive birds. I got Perry after I had taken a few years off of playing and truly decided to come back to it and pursue music again professionally.”

With the Symphony she plays her contrabassoon “Tiger Rose” so named because of its “beautiful rose color and stripes.” Tiger Rose was purchased on a “contra tour” that took Emmie to three states to search for the perfect contrabassoon. “I needed one to fit me well because I have small hands.” Contras are big and heavy. They are an octave lower than a bassoon, and the piping is 10 feet longer, at 18 feet, and are folded back twice like a paper clip. In the case it “reaches above my head and hits me at mid-calf,” and Emmie is not short.

Emmie started on the flute in grade school, but her teacher recognized that Emmie was bored with the flute. “She asked me to take a look at a brand-new bassoon that had just been purchased for the school, and never played. Unwrapping it was so exciting, and it looked and sounded so funky and quirky. I just loved it. It was really challenging to go from a flute to a double reed instrument, and that’s why I liked it. And no one else played the bassoon!”

She continued with the flute all through college at Cal Poly, played in the drumline, and received a BA in Music. During college Emmie interned with the Youth Symphony, and worked in the symphony office wherever she was needed. She continued her education in London at the Royal Academy of Music and earned a Master of Arts in Bassoon Performance. She was accompanied to England by her first bassoon “Blondie” who was named for her golden-stained wood.

About living in London for two years Emmie said “I loved London. It may sound trite, but the history and architecture made it special. It was so easy to travel around England by train and it was just wonderful to be able to take the train to Paris. My mom came for Christmas, and Christmas in London is especially magical.” While at the Academy, Emmie played in a full orchestra that performed orchestral arrangements of jazz and pop music. Embedded in the orchestra was a jazz combo, a big band, and 4 jazz singers. The orchestra was started by a fellow student, and the players came from the Academy, the Royal College of Music, Trinity Laban, and Guildhall.

Maybe as a result of her experience in London, Emmie is a jazz fan. She likes most jazz but “I always go back to Snarky Puppy.” For classical she likes Tchaikovsky “for the big bassoon parts” and Chopin, and the Russian and French romantics.

A surprising thing about Emmie is her participation in Scottish Highland Games, as a thrower, along with fellow musician and bass trombone player Rose Doylemason. The games consist of 9 events of throwing really heavy objects far. They competed in October and won and competed in the Phoenix Highland Games in March. Emmie is also an avid reader of mysteries and historical fiction, and she is a quilter. She quilts with her mom in her mom’s garage-turned sewing studio where they even have a 10-foot long-arm quilting machine.

Emmie lives in Pasadena. When she’s not performing with the Symphony, or other local groups, she plays in Irvine, Riverside, and the San Fernando Valley. She has a “full time, day job” with the musicians’ union. She aspires to perform full-time so she can ditch the day job. When you see Emmie ask her about how she plays “bassoon karaoke.”

Emmie is without a sponsor for the 2024-2025 season. If you would like to sponsor her, please contact [email protected], or call 805-356-1438.

Musician Sponsorships

Symphony musicians spend countless hours in preparation for concert performances. By “countless” we mean they spend so much time in preparation the musicians themselves are unable to give a definitive answer as to how much time they spend. Maestro Andrew Sewell programs new, innovative, and complicated pieces of music to keep audiences engaged and challenged.

This requires considerable study and practice for the musicians on their own, and they often practice with members of their section before the full rehearsals with Maestro Sewell. All this intensive work serves the goal of providing you, our audience, with the best performance possible.

Prior to the start of each season, we seek sponsorships for our musicians. Season musician sponsorships range from $800 to $2,000. You may pick your musician to sponsor, or we can select one for you. Your name will be printed in each program next to the name of your musician, you will be listed on the symphony website, and you will receive invitations to exclusive Symphony donor events.

Helping to support the efforts of a musician is a rewarding experience. We hope you will consider a musician sponsorship for the 2024-2025 season, and if you are already a sponsor you will continue for next season. Thank you for your consideration and continued support!

For sponsorship information call 805-356-1438, email [email protected], or CLICK HERE to read the Sponsorship Guide

Clif’s Notes 

By Clifton Swanson, Symphony Board President, former Member of the Bass Section, and Conductor 1971-1984

So, by what stretch can it be said that the Forbes Pipe Organ in the SLO Performing Arts Center is related to a brain? By a big stretch, actually. Only that the Greek word organon was a general word meaning “tool”, for example. A tool as in a means to an end for making music (organ) or a body part like a brain (organ) designed for a specific function.

Actually, brains aside, the earliest organs associated with music date back to the Greeks and Romans when they were used to add color to the opening and closing of sporting events. Called a Hydraulus, they were operated by water pressure and their images can be found on mosaics and paintings.

From the Hydraulus, with up to 27 pitches, to the modern pipe organ of 33,112 pipes and 7 keyboards, the organ has achieved a level of development that defies comprehension and perhaps sanity. Purposes are as far-ranging as religious services, secular, jazz, silent movies, and even the earliest use of a pipe organ at a Chicago Cubs baseball game in 1941.

While the terminology associated with a pipe organ is extensive, examples of terms from the organ world are:

• manual keyboard: played by the hands (manually)
• pedal keyboard: played by the feet
• ranks of pipes: a complete scale of pitches with from low to high with the same tonal quality (i.e. flute, trumpet, strings, etc.).
• stops: the levers on each side of the keyboards that connects the keyboard(s) to the various ranks of pipes
• coupler: mechanical system that enables the performer to connect various keyboards to various ranks of pipes in combinations for different colors or effects.

The Forbes Pipe Organ was literally designed to fit the space in the PAC that was designated to accommodate an instrument. Fortunately, the PAC design committee recognized that if there was such a space, an organ would come, and this foresight paid off. Initially partially funded by Dr. John and Barbara Hartman, the design and crafting of the instrument was funded by local philanthropists Burt and Candace Forbes.

It took 6 weeks to assemble the many parts and 6 months to “voice” and tune it. A beautiful instrument in terms of craftsmanship and tonal quality, it was built by a leading organ builder C.B. Fisk and is recognized as one of the finest pipe organs on the West Coast.

The SLO Symphony’s final concert on Saturday, May 4, will make full use of the Forbes Pipe Organ. Two unique pieces will be performed that evening that demonstrate the instrument in two completely different contexts.

The first piece will be Sunrise Over the Middle World composed by symphony board member Stefan Podell. The piece is a result of an auction item at the 2023 SLO Symphony Gala where composer Podell offered to write a piece for the highest bidder in which the “sponsor” could help determine the musical characteristics such as instruments, tempo, preferences of colors, possible subject matter, etc., in great detail.  The lucky winner of this “auction item” is Marti Lindholm, local musician and organist who was thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in the fashioning of a completely new work for the organ repertoire.

Also on the program will be Saint-Saen’s Symphony No. 3 in C major.  The most famous work for organ and orchestra, it will conclude the concert as well as the 23-24 season in style. The opportunity to hear this piece live (it is often used as a demo for the highest quality sound systems) is a rare event because few concert halls even house a real pipe organ. It is truly a sonic spectacle!

Back to brains…to truly master a pipe organ is a major challenge. Keeping track of the two hands, the two feet, the changing of sound through miscellaneous stops, the rise and fall of dynamics, plus following a conductor or a movie, does require a better brain than usual!

P.S. At the Symphony’s annual benefit Gala “An Evening in Vienna” on Saturday, April 27, one of the Silent Auction items will be “The Ultimate PAC Tour” guided by Clifton Swanson that will include the history, design, acoustics, little known spaces, and culmination with the opportunity to go inside the Forbes organ and even the chance to play it. This tour will take place on May 4, the day of the concert. Visit the Symphony’s website at slosymphony.org for more information, or to sign up now for this special event.

 Also, the high point of the Gala Live Auction will be the opportunity to bid on another new composition for organ and orchestra by composer Stefan Podell! Once again, the winning bidder will design the parameters of the piece, the subject, the orchestra instrumentation, and musical characteristics. An enormously rewarding experience, it is always described as far exceeding the expectations of the winner and composer-once-removed. Come to the Gala to see what it is all about!

Music Education Notes 

 

We are excited to invite prospective music students to try Youth Symphony and perform at our Finale Concert on May 20 at Cuesta! FREE!

See our website for details and registration information: https://www.slosymphony.org/youth-symphony/spring-celebration/

Music Van Volunteers Needed!

Come be a part of our music van school presentations! We are looking for people who are available during school hours to help students explore playing instruments.

Please contact [email protected] if you’d like to learn more!

3 New Celli from Classics For Kids

We received one 1/2 size and two 1/4 size new cello outfits from Classics For Kids Foundation and matching funds from our John Baer Music Education Fund! Local students will be able to use these instruments in our Strings In Schools programs.

If you have any musical instruments to donate for local student to use, please contact Grace Seng: [email protected]

Click here if you’d like to contribute to the John Baer Music Education Fund!

Coming Up

Classics V: Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns, Brammeier, & Podell – Saturday, May 4, 2024
7:30 PM

The season finale features Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 with soloist Salome Jordania, and Saint-Saëns mighty Organ Symphony featuring the Forbes organ, played by Paul Woodring. We open with the world premiere of Meredith Brammeier’s Suite on Georgia O’Keefe. Taken from a set of piano pieces and orchestrated for full orchestra, we are excited to feature Cal Poly Professor of Composition Meredith Brammeier on this season finale. And finally, we will be premiering a new work by local composer and SLO Symphony Board Member, Stefan Podell. This piece was commissioned for the Symphony by Marti Lindholm at last year’s Gala Fundraiser.

Sponsored By Bert and Candace Forbes, The Foulke Correa Foundation, and Cricket Handler and Jerry Boots

Reserve your seats HERE.

High Notes Humor