Major: It’s June 4th 2007. This is Jean Major. I’m with Rob Cross talking about the history of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and before that the Norfolk Symphony. Rob, tell me how long you’ve been a member of the Symphony?
Cross: I auditioned for the orchestra in December of 1980 and joined soon after in 1981.
Major: I see. What was your professional experience before the symphony?
Cross: Well, I was actually still in school at the time. I was in my senior year at New England Conservatory, and I graduated in spring of ’81, but I was doing a lot of free lancing in the Boston area, playing in a lot of the orchestras that were in the region. I was playing in the Portland Symphony, the New Hampshire Symphony, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra which was a Boston based chamber orchestra and worked with the American Musical Theatre, I’m sorry, the American Repertory Theatre which was the professional equity company that was in residence at Harvard University, so I had done a lot of very good free lance work which was helping to put me through school, and then I was lucky enough to win the job here in the orchestra, and that last semester of 1981 kind of went back and forth between Norfolk and Boston finishing up my degree and started really living here permanently there in the summer/fall of 1981.
Major: What is a career with the Virginia Symphony like?
Cross: Well, I’d say it is very different now than it was in 1981. As you know, the orchestra has grown dramatically in the last, I guess it will be 25 years. At the time they probably did eight or nine what we call master works or classical concerts, those were probably pairs, and a handful of pops concerts and probably 10 or 15 young people’s concerts. So, it was really a part-time orchestra in those days, and musicians, you know, did a lot of teaching at universities or at public schools or private teaching to supplement their income, and today it’s, the orchestra has a very, very busy 40 week schedule, and now the musicians have to hopefully put some teaching around the orchestra, as supposedly the other way around.
Major: Now what are the various facets? I know there are a number of different things that the orchestra does.
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Cross: Well, one of the things that’s changed in this community are the number of great venues in the last 10 or 15 years so, you know, if you go back historically, when I joined the orchestra, I think it was probably right after the merger, and I think it was probably called the Virginia Philharmonic then, which was the name after the Norfolk Symphony. So, the orchestra really has turned into a regional organization in the sense that they serve the entire Hampton Roads community and do important major concert series in several cities throughout Hampton Roads, and it’s an interesting model if you look at other orchestras around the country, and one of our greatest strengths and one of our greatest challenges is the fact that we are broken up into a lot of different cities, so unlike a Boston Symphony that can for the most part stay parked in Symphony Hall except for the summer when they go to Tanglewood, this orchestra has to get up and move to go meet the needs of the community because of the water and transportation issues.
Major: I remember . . . a concert in the past year at the Ferguson Center where a transportation issue came up.
Cross: Yes.
Major: I was--we were part of a little dinner group before, so we weren’t really aware there was an issue until we came to the hall to sit down, and only a handful of musicians were there.
Cross: Yes, we had a Master Works concert; I think it was in the fall of this year which I guess would have been 2006, where if you didn’t leave really early for whatever reason, if you didn’t come over early to get dinner or whether you had a student over there, you were stuck, and it was the perfect storm that night because of the three ways to get over there, one of the tunnels was closed for maintenance; the other had an accident; and the other one turned into a parking lot because people were using it instead of the other two tunnels, so at concert time, you were right; there was maybe 10 or 15 of the 60 musicians we needed that night, and they started trickling in as they figured out how to get there, and I think the concert ended up starting almost an hour late that night.
Major: It did, but it was still good.
Cross: It was a great concert, if I remember correctly.
Major: Right. What work do you do in addition to playing with the symphony?
Cross: Well, I’m very lucky because I’ve got this wonderful job being the executive director of the Virginia Arts Festival, so it’s—you know we’re a relatively young organization if you compare it to the history of the orchestra. We just as of yesterday finished our 11th season. It’s a six-week performing arts festival that’s also regionally based, and we also have the privilege of using the orchestra a lot for the festival. This year they were in the pit for the Birmingham
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Royal Ballet. They were the orchestra for our world premier of Pocahontas, the new chamber opera that we did in salute and acknowledgement of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown. So my time now is juggling between the Virginia Symphony, being the principal percussionist, and also leading the Virginia Arts Festival.
Major: And I’m guessing that means you don’t have students?
Cross: No, no I gave up teaching several years ago because, prior to being with the Arts Festival, I was in the administrative side of the orchestra, also in several different roles over the years.
Major: What are those?
Cross: Well, the job I left when I was hired to start the festival, I was the general manager of the orchestra, and I had served twice as the interim executive director and had been the artistic administrator, and actually my first administrative job with the orchestra was the personnel manager, so I kind of worked up through the ranks and got a fantastic amount of experience in the arts management world.
Major: The general manager, how is that different from the executive director?
Cross: The executive director is usually the number one administrative position in the organization and . . . interacts with the board on a pretty regular basis . . . general manager tends to deal with kind of the artistic issues of the orchestra—scheduling, programming, working with guest artists. A lot of times in the case when it’s not a member of the orchestra, they’ll deal with labor negotiations. Obviously I didn’t do that. Since I was a member of the orchestra, I didn’t handle the labor negotiations. It usually oversees things like the librarian, personnel manager; it’s a pretty all-encompassing job.
Major: With a lot of good administrative experience, as you said?
Cross: Yes.
Major: What have been some of the high points of your career with the symphony?
Cross: Well, you’ll probably get this answer out of a lot of people you ask. I would say two of them right off the top of my head were playing in Carnegie Hall and playing in Kennedy Center. That was great to be able to showcase the orchestra outside the region, to help tell the story that we all know this community has a great orchestra and trying to get that word outside of Hampton Roads. We had good audiences for both those concerts. The orchestra played well, and it was exciting. It was, for me, it was only the second time I’d played in Carnegie Hall. I’d played there years earlier with another orchestra on tour--the ____
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Symphony, as a matter of fact. So those were two of them. I would say some others off the top of my head would be Mahler Two with JoAnn conducting, probably Joshua Bell working with the orchestra as part of the Arts Festival was a highlight for me, and probably the Romeo and Juliet we did, the fully staged Romeo and Juliet with the Shakespeare and using the Prokofiev score as incidental music, we produced for the festival would be another highlight.
Major: I remember that.
Cross: Yeah.
Major: I remember Joshua Bell.
Cross: Yes.
Major: Other than high points, what other memorable moments have there been?
Cross: Oh boy, there—you know, I’ve been in the orchestra—I’ve been associated with the orchestra almost my entire professional career and student career, so it’s so much woven into my life as a musician and my life in the community, having grown up here and playing in the Youth Orchestra for several years and the close affiliation with Russell Stanger, the old music director of the Norfolk Symphony used to come over occasionally and work with the Youth Orchestra, and that was always a big, big highlight for the students that the maestro was going to come over and work with the orchestra. So, it really dates back to my early days of when I got serious about wanting to play my instrument for a living and making a career out of it. There’s so—there’s dozens, I mean some others that come to mind . . . boy, let me think, some of the recordings that we’ve done with the orchestra that we put down on disc what we do; those are exciting when they come out . . . ummm, that’s what comes to mind off the top of my head.
Major: I would guess that the Edgar Schenkman period was before your time even as a youngster growing up here.
Cross: That’s correct. I don’t—I never had a chance to meet him I don’t even know what year he died. I probably should, but I don’t.
Major: He left here in 1966. Russell Stanger came in 1966.
Cross: Yeah.
Major: But you were active in the Youth Orchestra during the Russell Stanger period?
Cross: Yes . . . I would have been playing in the Youth Orchestra probably like from 1974 through ’77, and that was back when Sidney Berg, the old timpanist of
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the orchestra, was music director of the Youth Orchestra. It was back then called the Tidewater Youth Orchestra, and Greg Barnes and Linda Althoff worked with the Junior Youth Orchestra. So I spent four years in that program, and it was a fantastic program. We did great repertoire. It was a good experience and it—my high school did not have an orchestra. We only had a band, so it was my first orchestral experience was playing in the Youth Orchestra.
Major: Do you know enough about the Russell Stanger period to know what caused it to end?
Cross: I don’t. It was before I was really conscious of how an orchestra runs and how it works. I was lucky enough that my last year in high school I got to sub with the orchestra a few times; that was actually my first professional orchestral experience, so I had a chance to work with him probably right near before he left the orchestra, and then we had the opportunity last week; he came back and did a concert with the musicians of the orchestra for the festival. We did a chamber orchestra concert last week over at Old Dominion University.
Major: Really?
Cross: Yeah.
Major: Richard Williams and Winston Dan Vogel both were short-term conductors. Can you tell why that was?
Cross: Well, Richard came right, it was interesting, Richard was hired right after I was hired . . . so I was here for all of his tenure with the orchestra, and I think the orchestra was growing very quickly at the time, and I think there had been a decision and a commitment made by the board, and the musicians were pushing very much to have the orchestra grow and become more and more professional, and I think there was a thought that Richard was not the person that was going to take the orchestra any further. I think there were some great things he did in those years that he was here to transition, but it was apparent, I think, that it was—the orchestra had more potential, and it was time to move on.
Major: What were some of the great things he did?
Cross: He hired a lot of new people, so there was some turnover, some people retired. I think, repertoire-wise, there was definitely some thought about what it would take to build audience. So we did—again it was a very short period of time, but I remember we did some great programs with the orchestra. It was exciting because it was my first job, so a lot of the repertoire I was playing for the first time.
Major: What about Winston Dan Vogel?
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Cross: When Winston was hired, I was actually by that time involved in the management of the orchestra, so I think I was probably personnel manager when Winston was first hired, and then shortly after I was made artistic administrator, and it was really not a real happy time for the musicians of the orchestra. I don’t think Winston really related well to the musicians. I don’t think he understood how an American orchestra works. It was definitely a different philosophy in terms of . . . the way you treat musicians than is more acceptable today in American orchestras. It was very much old school, a more dictatorial approach, and I think the conductors that have success today are those that treat musicians as colleagues and with respect. I mean they’re still in charge of the orchestra, but, you know, my, my opinion is that you get more out of musicians and people in general by encouraging them and working with them as opposed to kind of lording over them with this autocratic . . . kind of--abusive is probably a little strong a word but definitely not in a collegial approach.
Major: Musically, did he have accomplishments during his period?
Cross: Definitely, I remember some good concerts with Winston. He was definitely a good musician and challenged the orchestra artistically, and Winston made a lot of changes in personnel. He fired a lot of musicians in the orchestra.
Major: Oh, really?
Cross: And that was definitely one of the--you know, that’s a tough time when an orchestra is transitioning and turning into a more professional orchestra is how you deal with those issues, whether people should retire and whether they’re up to the perceived expectations or the level of where the orchestra is or where they’re going.
Major: In some of the previous interviews we’ve done, I think it was suggested that the comings and goings of personnel—of musicians, was part of the Richard Williams period, too, that part of his job was to . . . bring the level of musicianship up with new personnel.
Cross: I’m going to, you know, show my naiveté at the time because I was so new to the organization that I wasn’t really perceiving that, I was, you know, I was a new hiree; I was so excited to be part of a professional orchestra, so, and I wasn’t involved in the management part of it at the time, so I really wasn’t that conscious of that. I mean I was still practicing a lot because I was right out of school. I was doing a lot of teaching at the time because you had to at that time to supplement your income from the orchestra.
Major: But, but during the Winston Dan Vogel period, definitely there was a lot of coming and going of musicians; it was the same.
Cross: Definitely, yeah.
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Major: How important have the various executive directors been . . . in making an effective orchestra?
Cross: Well, I think it’s incredibly important, and I think it’s one of the most challenging issues for an orchestra like the Virginia Symphony and other orchestras this size around the country. There’s an interesting—my analogy is, I’ve always thought it would be easier to be the executive director of the New York Philharmonic or the Boston Symphony than it would be the Virginia Symphony because the orchestra, I’m guessing the budget is now in the 5-6 million dollar range, and those orchestras have, you know, anywhere from 15-25 million dollar budgets, and they have a lot more money to spend on staff, so at an orchestra like the New York Philharmonic, the executive director can really spend their time, you know, flying at what, 20,000 feet, where they’re working on major fund raising and institutional issues, and, you know, thinking about the future of the orchestra and being a real visionary. In an orchestra with a smaller budget and more financial challenges, the executive director has to constantly be pulled back into the marketing department, the development office, the operational side of the organization so they’re pulled in so many directions, so you have to be an expert in marketing, in development, in operations and in addition to running the board or working with the board. So I find it incredibly challenging, and there aren’t a lot of very good people out there, so the ones that are good can move up quickly or be pulled away to go run a museum or a hospital or a university where there’s a lot more money. So I think it’s a big, big challenge for the Virginia Symphony and for all orchestras in that budget size.
Major: What other staff members are important to the orchestra’s effectiveness?
Cross: Well, I think they’re all important. I think that, you know, the orchestra… there—is living organisms and in a musician’s, in an ideal world, can spend their time worrying about their instruments, practicing coming prepared and not have all the other things kind of weighing on them. It’s because, you know, the Virginia Symphony has had a lot of staff turnover, but the musicians are the ones that tend to stay here because there aren’t a lot of jobs out there, so people, if they get a job and they like the area, they tend to stay and in a lot of cases their whole career. Whereas…because there aren’t as many opportunities out there, and the jobs are so hard to come by, whereas there tends to be a lot of turnover on the staff, musicians are left behind to hold the pieces together, to train the new staff and to work with them so that’s why the staff becomes so key because the institutional memory of the organization and, you know, it takes so much time to bring the new people up to speed.
Major: Interesting . . . Records show that musicians were put on salary in 1985 and so that was the full-time salaried orchestra for the first time. How did it happen? The symphony was established in 1921; it was a long time. How did it happen finally?
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Cross: I think it happened because the musicians were pushing really hard. I think it was, you know, it became a bigger job for the board. I mean, if you go back historically, the board, in a lot of sense, you know, could have been a social organization because they didn’t have the fund raising responsibility that they did then in ’85, and they have even more so now. So it became much more challenging for the organization to raise the kind of money it takes—orchestras are hungry beasts; it takes a lot of money to maintain an orchestra, and a lot of people in the audience and the community don’t understand what it takes to maintain, I think in our case 54-55 full-time musicians, and so they can make a living wage so that their primary concern is playing their instrument. So I think it took pushing from the musicians saying that we think the community can support and should have a professional level orchestra.
Major: So after that happened, was it…has it been easier to recruit musicians nationally?
Cross: Yes, definitely, no question, especially string players. I mean there are so many winds, brass, and percussionists out there for the number of jobs, but there aren’t as many good string players, and we historically have a much higher turnover in the string sections than we have in the winds, brass, and percussion.
Major: And so now auditions are very competitive?
Cross: They are. I think we just had a trombone audition this past week, and I don’t want to get the numbers wrong, but I think they heard 50 or 60 people for a second trombone opening. We just had, I think, a principal bassoon audition within the last two weeks. I think there were 70 or 80 bassoon players there for that, so it’s—they’re coveted jobs, and we feel very lucky to have the jobs that we have in the orchestra.
Major: And these are people who come at their own expense to audition?
Cross: Oh yeah, it’s a very interesting thing, we joke about it sometimes. If you look at almost any other industry where, if they have an opening, they’ll advertise and probably narrow it down to two or three people that are interested in it. They’ll fly those people in and interview them and everything. Well, here we’ll have 50 to 100 people fly in at their own expense for a job that’s 40 weeks in length and pays 27-28,000 dollars a year.
Major: In the area of labor relations, what notable incidents have taken place over your career in the orchestra?
Cross: Well, there was a strike that happened in the early or mid-80s . . . and I think that was definitely a rough period for musicians and the board and their relationship, and then there have been a couple of tough issues as the orchestra transitioned into being the orchestra for the Virginia Opera because, for years
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and years, they were two separate orchestras. Most of the younger players that were hired as new Virginia Symphony members were playing both, but there was a period there where the opera brought in almost the whole orchestra from out of town. So as the orchestras--the quality of the Virginia Symphony was improving, and those new musicians were coming in--the opera was more willing to hire those musicians, and then putting the two jobs together what’s really made it possible to start thinking of having a salaried core orchestra, but there’s definitely—it creates interesting challenges because you really, in a sense you have two music directors now that have input into the quality and the hiring and firing of musicians. There are a couple of other examples of that around the country, but it makes it tougher.
Major: What is the involvement of the opera in the recruitment?
Cross: It’s changed over the course of the 10 or 15 years that they’ve been working together. Currently, since I’m a little bit out of the loop, I don’t know where it is. There was a period there where someone from the opera, whether it was Peter or someone else on his staff, would actually sit in on the auditions and have a vote on who we were going to hire. Currently, I don’t think that is happening, but I’m not sure.
Major: I didn’t realize that. How did the symphony’s partnership with Norfolk State develop--the partnership where a person was recruited for their faculty and also . . .
Cross: I don’t know. I wasn’t involved in it. I don’t know anything about it at all.
Major: Okay . . . when—I know that you arrived just as the merger to form the Virginia Orchestra group was being played out, and it was your first professional job, but given that, what do you think--looking at it now—what do you think were the opportunities that were presented by merging those local ensembles?
Cross: Well, it created the opportunity for there to be more work for one professional orchestra. That’s probably the biggest opportunity that it created.
Major: There was a time—I have read about times, during the Stanger period particularly, where he and other people on the board spent a lot of time trying to fashion work situations which would keep any musician busy for close to full time in order to make it easier to recruit, and most of those were short-lived ideas, but it was a recurring theme in the Stanger period, definitely.
Cross: That pre-dates me so I wouldn’t know about it, but it makes sense.
Major: Right. What do you think were the obstacles in merging those groups?
Cross: I think… again it having happened while I wasn’t living here, and the little bit I’ve heard about it when I got back, I think one of the biggest obstacles is,
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what do you do with all those other musicians that were playing in those other orchestras? I think, you know, one of the things that you don’t want to lose sight at—sight of, is that how valuable community orchestras are to a community, and they have a valid place. There needs to be a place for highly qualified, amateur musicians, whether they be school teachers or people who were serious about it when they are young, to practice their craft and, you know, I think there probably wasn’t enough attention given to leaving those kind of things in place for those people that were purely doing it for the love of their instrument. They weren’t doing it to make a living. But, you know, hindsight it’s easy to go back and say you know, “Should have done this; wouldn’t it have been nice?”
Major: One of the . . . most prominent features of that period of the merger and the shakedown after was the exit of Walter Noona. What are your observations about that?
Cross: Well, I think one of the challenges for orchestras that—for all orchestras struggle with, whether it’s the Boston Symphony or the Virginia Symphony or the Nashville Symphony, is where does the pops fit into the make- up of an orchestra? And orchestras historically have looked at it as a revenue stream to help support the things that don’t pay for themselves with ticket sales. I mean, if you look at the Boston Symphony as being the perfect model, the Boston Pops is their—they do great concerts, and the community loves it, but it’s really a money-making machine for the Boston Symphony so that they can turn around and do, you know, if they want to do Barrick or, or, you know, Takemitsu or something they know is not going to sell a lot of tickets, but they think is important to the artistic well-being of the orchestra, they can do it. So, you know if pops is working, and it’s bringing in audience members that wouldn’t otherwise go to the orchestra, and it’s a positive revenue generator, it’s a great thing. It’s interesting, you know, when I was the general manager and the artistic administrator of the orchestra, I did a lot of the booking for the pops, for the artists and a lot of the scheduling, and I think there was this fallacy there for probably a 10 or 15 year period, when other orchestras saw the success of the pops, the Boston Pops, and said, “You know, we need to be doing that.” There was this misconception that if you do pops, people are going to come to the pops, and they’re going to love it, and they’re going to love it so much they’re going to turn around and come to see Mahler, and I think that’s a huge mistake that a lot of orchestras made, and I think the Virginia Symphony, you know, historically made that. I mean there are people who love both. You know there are certain things --the orchestra’s playing with Arturo Sandoval or, you know, Bonnie Raitt or something, if you happen to like those artists, you might go, but you know, the people that want to see Rogers and Hammerstein or, you know, Carol Lawrence or stuff, I think it’s a distinct audience from those that want to see, you know, Beethoven Five or Brahms Two piano concerto with a great pianist. So I think there was so much effort and money put into building up pops and thinking we’re going to transition them over to support the main product that there was a lot of missteps along the way, and I think in giving a very long answer to your question about Walter Noona, I think it was a period where the orchestra was struggling
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with, you know, we have a local person who was very popular in the community, had a very successful series out in Virginia Beach, you know, where does he fit into this new model? And you know, some things worked and some things didn’t, and they were just struggling, okay what are we going to do with this? We’ve got to feed the orchestra; we’ve got to pay the orchestra, and all these services; how are we going to use them? And if you look at the history of the Virginia Symphony’s Pops Series, you can see that they have not really—they still struggle with that answer; just look at the last five or six years of what the pops has done, the things that have been successful and those that haven’t been successful.
Major: At the time of the merger, was there—was it perfectly clear what the hierarchy was, that Richard Williams was the chief and Walter Noona was the second guy, or was this not an issue?
Cross: Well, it was before my time, so I don’t know the conversations that happened when they were auditioning conductors and doing contracts and stuff.
Major: Tell more about your work with the youth orchestra. You did that all through high school?
Cross: I think I started in, I think eighth grade so probably five years, either eighth or ninth grade but I think it was eighth grade, and we used to rehearse on Monday nights at Granby High School, and I remember actually we were at for the Youth—Junior Youth Orchestra we were at North Side Middle School, up there on Granby Street all the way to Ocean View, and the Senior Youth Orchestra rehearsed at Granby Street—at Maury High School on Granby Street, and it was great; we played a fantastic repertoire. It was a very, very good orchestra. Some really good players went through that orchestra. Sidney Berg had built a good string program with Norfolk public schools, so we had good string players in the Youth Orchestra. So, you got through real repertoire. We played great stuff, I mean, I remember doing Beethoven symphonies, Smetana, Dvorak, and Shostakovich . . . it’s invaluable experience.
Major: Was the membership selective?
Cross: Yes, it was an audition process. It was regional in a sense, and I say regional. I think it was primarily this side of the water at the time, and a lot of Norfolk/Virginia Beach students because those were the better—where the better music programs were. Yes, I remember it being competitive, you know, being an honor to be in the Youth Orchestra.
Major: And did the symphony musicians ever play with the Youth Orchestra?
Cross: You know, we didn’t do side-by-side concerts like we do now. Each year we do one orchestra where the symphony plays side-by-side with the orchestra.
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We do a couple of rehearsals and coach them, but there was a lot of the musicians coming in and working with us at our rehearsals. You know, John Lindberg, who was the principal percussionist at the time, would come to rehearsal and, you know, coach parts and stuff like that, and there was very active involvement with the string players from the symphony working with the strings. String instruments, I can say this, are a lot harder than our instruments, so, you know, the repertoire is harder, so you know it was very valuable to have people from the old Norfolk Symphony at the time come in and work with the Youth Orchestra.
Major: Has the Youth Orchestra experienced sort of an arc? Did it diminish at some point? What we have now is not the same as the Youth Orchestra, is it?
Cross: No, there’s . . . I think it’s called the Bay Area Youth Orchestra now, and I think a lot of people from the orchestra coach over there, but I don’t think there’s as close a relationship between the two organizations as there used to be, except for the fact that we are doing the side-by-side concerts now. I think it’s—I think it’s tougher now because students have so many more options than they did 25-30 years ago. I think they’re pulled in a lot of directions. I mean, you know, when I was there in about the eighth grade I made the decision that this is what I wanted to do with my life, so that was where my focus was, and I stopped playing as much sports. I played a lot of basketball and baseball when I was younger, and you kind of transitioned, you know, away from that because I needed to be, spend time practicing my instrument, going to summer camps and things like that, but—I don’t have children but my observation of my friends that do is their kids do everything. You know, one day they’ve got soccer, the next day they’ve got a tennis lesson, then they’ve got an English tutor, then they’ve got—you know they’re taking a piano lesson, so I think there’s a lot more competition for students’ time and parents running them around.
Major: At one time there was a Community Music School. Was that during the time, at any time when you were an active musician?
Cross: I wasn’t knowledgeable about it, so I don’t know.
Major: Okay. Over time, have you had some significant contact with the Symphony Board?
Cross: When I was on the staff I did. I had a lot of contact.
Major: What kind?
Cross: I went to the board meetings because I was the general manager, so and the two times I was interim executive director, and one of those times was in a particularly financial . . . challenging time for the orchestra. I mean, I had daily
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involvement with the board, out trying to help raise money, and you know, keep the doors open.
Major: The board at times has been very large, and I’m guessing that there was only a sub-set of the orchestra—of the board that you had a lot of contact with?
Cross: That would be correct. I mean there were probably five to ten that were very, very active that I met with and worked with on a regular basis, and there was a little larger group that was relatively involved, and then there was the group that I never met.
Major: Was there—has there been a sub-set of the board who handled relations with musicians or labor relations—what do they call them?
Cross: There were—when I was involved, there always tended to be one or two people, and usually lawyers, because that’s what they did, that would deal with contract issues and, and worked with labor negotiations.
Major: Did you then or now have much contact with any members of the Symphony League?
Cross: Not really . . . there were a couple that were very, very active when I was on the staff that I got to know pretty well. They seem to be so much more involved now on a day-to-day basis in terms of fund raising for the orchestra and doing volunteer work so, and since I’m not there as much, I don’t know, and I have to say that when I was there actively on the staff, I don’t think there was as much involvement with what they did with what the staff was doing. I don’t think it was right or wrong; it’s just not the way it really worked. I don’t know whether the board was working with them more directly then the staff was.
Major: How strong has the symphony been in the last ten years or so?
Cross: What do you mean by strength?
Major: Whatever.
Cross: I think artistically it’s probably the strongest it’s ever been since I’ve been in the orchestra, in the last five or six years. JoAnn has done an amazing job of building the orchestra artistically. I think it’s probably it’s, you know, it’s struggled financially from year to year. Some years are better than others. It seems to be on a more sure footing right now than it has been in the past. I understand they’re getting ready to go into an endowment campaign which should, should help . . . I think they’re much—I think the community is much more knowledgeable about the importance of the orchestra to the community that, that you know the musicians of the orchestra, you know, are in most cases the faculty members of most of the universities that have music programs, that the people in
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the community that have students that are serious about their instrument are usually studying with symphony musicians. I mean, it’s the orchestra for the Virginia Opera; it’s the orchestra for the Festival when we need an orchestra for the Festival, so it’s—I would say it’s much more acknowledged in the community of what an important piece of it is of the artistic makeup of Hampton Roads.
Major: How did the symphony become a nationally recognized symphony?
Cross: I think with the fact that we went to Carnegie Hall successfully, Kennedy Center successful—successfully, now that we’re recording, there are recordings out there. JoAnn gets national attention because of her guest conducting in other areas and the fact that she also has Buffalo Philharmonic.
Major: It’s my understanding that the term “nationally recognized symphony” is an accepted term; it’s not a casual term; is that right?
Cross: Well, the American Symphony Orchestra League has, you know, over the years, they categorize orchestras by budget size, so as the orchestra’s budget has gone up, they have moved into one of the categories of what are acknowledged as professional orchestras.
Major: What additional things need to happen to increase the symphony’s financial stability?
Cross: Raise more money [Laughter] it’s really that simple. I mean, you know, there’s a lot of competition out there for the dollar, but I think as the staff becomes more stable, there’s less turnover on the staff, and they build relationships in the community and with the cities, they’ll have the ability to raise more money. I mean, I think artistically the orchestra is, as I mentioned earlier, is doing better than they’ve ever done, and I think it just takes a lot of money to maintain an orchestra.
Major: How have musicians been asked to assist in either fundraising or friend-making for the orchestra?
Cross: They go on a lot of calls with staff and with JoAnn . . . done a lot of “meet and greets” with—at closed performances where they invite donors—potential donors to come meet guest artists and the musicians and JoAnn. I’ve gone to play in people’s homes to do, you know, friend-raising, as you say, where they’ll just bring a string quartet or a woodwind quintet in, and a board member or donor will invite 15 or 20 of their closest friends, and someone gets up and tells the story of the orchestra and why it’s important to the community.
Major: In, in your view, what did the Symphony League contribute to the viability throughout the symphony’s history?
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Cross: Well, they’ve raised a lot of money, but I think as an important, if not more important, I think they’ve helped sell a lot of tickets, and they’ve been out there being pioneers and cheerleaders for the orchestra in the community.
Major: Are there things that you expected that I would ask about or things that you hoped to have an opportunity to get on the record in this conversation that I haven’t asked about?
Cross: No, I think we covered it. I mean I think if anything I would stress just for a personal standpoint, you know, what it means to be able to come home and live in your own community. I grew up here, played in the Youth Orchestra and was lucky enough to go away to a great music school and then be able to come back and get a job in the orchestra that I heard growing up, work with my colleagues and be a part of the community and, you know, meet someone who’s also a member of the orchestra and be able to make a living in Hampton Roads playing my instrument. It’s, it’s a fantastic thing and to be a part of this orchestra that to know that, if I left tomorrow, it’s a much better organization now than when I got here, and I’m sure in 10 or 15 years from now it’ll be an even better orchestra. You know I can’t stress, you know, that the orchestra I play in now is not the same one I joined in 1981. It’s a totally different animal in terms of quality and commitment from both the volunteers and the board and the musicians.
Major: Thank you very much. This has been a fascinating conversation.
END OF INTERVIEW
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