Major: This is Martha Stewart and Jean Major on September 5, 2006. Can you begin by telling me how your involvement with the symphony began?
Stewart: My husband, just before we came back to Norfolk , was in the Marine Corps. We had been out in California for a year. We came back in 1955 and became subscribers, sitting on the last three rows in the old Center Theater. That’s where we sat; it was cheap, so the concerts I think at that time might have been seven, seven concerts, and they kept talking about the Women’s League of the Norfolk Symphony and the Choral Association, the Women’s Auxiliary, excuse me. And being back newly to Norfolk and not having lived here really very much before, I thought that sounded very interesting. What better way to find out more about the music than go to the free concerts, so I began going, along with my college roommate. We went together, and that’s how it got started.
Major: And that was in 1955?
Stewart: Yup.
Major: And you have worked with the symphony league ever since.
Stewart: Ever since.
Major: Ever since. In all the time you’ve worked with the symphony league, what was your particular expertise, what did you particularly get involved with?
Stewart: Well, when we first began, the main thing that the auxiliary did was to provide the free concert lectures, which were given in the Chrysler Museum, and they always had a little eating afterwards, and Edgar Schenkman would give them, and he would stay for the eating and talking afterwards, and then we were responsible for the renewals of the subscriptions and whatever was required from the office about getting new members. One time we had to take care of the chorus’ robes, get them and be sure they were clean. I think this was before one of the Johnson girls came down as the Azalea Queen. They were going to sing, not for that but they wanted them to have a concert.
Major: One of LBJ’s daughters?
[2]
Stewart: Yea, I don’t know whether it was Lynda or what was the other one’s name?
Major: Luci.
Stewart: Luci with an I.
Major: Right.
Stewart: So, we did whatever we could, and all the business was taken care of involving subscriptions and renewals was taken care of in . . . oh, dear, what was that good lady’s name? I’ve forgotten her. Ruth Schmitz and her dining room table; that’s where all that business was handled in those days.
Major: All the subscriptions, all the renewals.
Stewart: She was the focus there, and people would come and work on lists. We would get lists and then come back and telephone from home because there was no office, it was the symphony office then, so Ruth did—she was the treasurer, too, of the symphony. She was very good with figures. I wish she were alive so she could tell you a thing or two. Her husband was the French Consul here, Pierre Schmitz; he was really a delightful man, most avid lover of Napoleon I’ve ever met. So, that’s how it worked; we did what we could from the places where we had to do them; nobody missed an office because we never had one. And as I said, Edgar Schenkman was the conductor, and we went along that way until somebody would give us the space downtown, maybe, or a room or two at the most, where we could do all this business, get it out of Ruth’s house. That’s the beginning of the office state, but it first began here. That’s where it happened. Now what else would you like me to talk about?
Major: In the time of your active involvement, what were some of the high points?
Stewart: High points. Well, you know Edgar Schenkman left eventually; he had taken on the conductorship of the Richmond Symphony, and many people thought it was time that he left because he was dividing his time between Norfolk and Richmond , and they didn’t think that was fair for the salary he was getting. I don’t know what his salary was, but there was a movement to have Edgar Schenkman make his choice with us or with Richmond but not both, and he decided—whether he decided or not, but he ended up in Richmond. And then there began to be a search committee, and we got—the next person was . . . I don’t remember who that next person was.
Major: Was that Russell Stanger?
Stewart: No, Russell came later.
[3]
Major: No, Russell Stanger—yea, Russell Stanger . . . was he the next one? Yes.
Stewart: Okay, so Russell was the next one. There were two after Russell. So, he came, and he was an entirely different kind of a person, very outgoing, very glad to talk to you, very about getting you excited about things. That was not Edgar Schenkman’s way of doing things. He was a good enough musician, I suppose. I have never been able to say that this one is terrible, or that one is worse or things like that; if the music sounds good to me, then that’s all I really want to hear. So, then what were we doing when Russell came? We did a lot of social things. I remember that after every concert where there was a guest artist, and that was most of time, we would have, would go to somebody’s home. Do you remember that—were you here when those days were . . .?
Major: No, but I’ve heard other people talk about it.
Stewart: Well, they were very nice. The league took care of that completely. I call it the league, but at that time it was still the auxiliary. Took care of that entirely—got the food, got the home, got the liquor, the wine—whatever and brought it into the person’s home, and usually they were very nice, and most the times the musicians came themselves. That was quite unusual; maybe it isn’t now, but they would like to come. A lot of them would like to come. If they didn’t want to come, they didn’t come, but that was one of the things that we did. The league invited any members that would like to come, and that’s how we began to get more people that became—the things that we did which required meeting together and talking together and being involved in some way in what the orchestra was doing was the way that the numbers of people grew. So, we did that for a long time, and then it got to be too much. We extended the number of concerts, and the homes had to get bigger and bigger, and then we started off by inviting a few musicians every time, and then we felt like we should have had more musicians, and it just got to be unwieldy, and we stopped doing that. And in place of that we took on having a party for the musicians once a year, all invited after a concert which they chose to have, which they would like to have, usually it’s in the spring or the early fall. Then we began moving all around to places where we had our offices. We used to have one in… upstairs in Chrysler Hall in rooms up there. I remember looking out over the stage in some of those rooms. Then when we went to…the bottom where Scope is, we had offices over there. We had offices in the . . . what is that house where the Junior League has its offices now? You know, we had an office there for a while. We just seemed to go all over the place, wherever we could get a . . .
Major: And I gather at that time the office was—the office of both the symphony and the symphony league because they were one and the same, in terms of the business operations, right?
Stewart: I suppose so, but we—that must have been so because we never, never interfered with what we used to call the big board. We still call mistakenly
[4]
the big board, and you know, a lot of ladies feel like they didn’t give us our due for the help that they did, but they did. They had a different set of priorities and different things to be involved with than we did. We have always been a helper, an adjunct of the big board. And I remember one of my jobs was to call up ladies, at that time it was only ladies, to come and work at the symphony office, so you’re right. The office was--And they would come and do, usually telephoning in some fashion. And you’d have to--you had a list of people who were willing to come and do that, and sometimes it was very short notice, and you needed to get a mailing out or that sort of thing, still sometimes don’t get a lot of notice, but that’s what we did, go to these offices, usually it was helping them in some way. And there was a man named John . . . what was John’s last name, he was really good about being late, but he was such a nice guy. [Laughter] The things that mattered a lot to me, eventually I got to be on the Meet and Greet Committee, going out to the airports and meeting the musicians who were coming in from wherever they came to give performances. We really had some very interesting people come. I remember, probably the high point, two high points was when Isaac Stern came here to play, and I was to shepherd him around from Thursday until Sunday when he left. I was to be his chauffeur. Now he was something. I’ve never met such a self-assured man. He was just—he had a raconteur also, one story after another, and I remember he was to give a master class out here at Old Dominion at the Diehn Hall, and I was to pick him up, I think maybe 2:30 or so. He had gone for a little rest after a rehearsal in the morning, and he said, “Oh, I’m so tired,” and I said to him, “I’ll bet once you get out there, you’re going to be charged up because I can really tell you’re a people person.” He said, “I hope so.” So, he got in the car, and I said, “Where is your violin?” He said, “Oh, I don’t take them to things like this because whatever sound comes out of a violin, they assume it’s because it’s the violin that I’m using.” But he did whatever showing he did on their violins, and that made a lot of difference. And he did perk up, he really did. Then who was our Irish man who plays the flute?
Major: James Galway.
Stewart: James Galway, he was another one. Bob and I had to go pick him up one evening. I didn’t have to shepherd him around. It depended on what they wanted, what they needed, what the people on this committee did. So, we tried to be very loose when there were people who needed help. And then do you remember the man, Solzhenitsyn, whose father was from Russia and wrote the book on the Gulag and what else was it? Yea, that’s what he looked like; his son is a musician. Do you remember when he came? It hadn’t been too long ago? And I never did the connection, can you imagine me being so--but he came, and he-- I think he conducted; that he came to be conductor one time. He was certainly an interesting person. We just talked, going to the airport and from the airport. So that’s always been a lot of fun to do that.
Major: I guess so.
[5]
Stewart: Finding a place for the musicians to stay is always a problem. Frequently they are housed out there at Regent, um . . . Regents, that place called Regency, that one that what’s his name has . . .
[Technician: Founder’s Inn .]
Stewart: Founder’s Inn , yea they stay there. That’s not a good place to have them because there is nothing for them to do. Everything is going on downtown, so they have a lot of going back and forth. So we’ve done that. I don’t want to say “I” because I was not the only one doing it. And oh . . . one of the highlights, of course, was when Chrysler Hall opened. And Russell, who was a personal friend of, what’s that pianist’s name? He’s an American pianist; they were good friends. He came and opened the hall. I may remember to tell you who it is, I bet you know.
Major: I may have it in my notes, but I can’t remember it either.
Stewart: You don’t hear about him very much any more. If he’s living, he’s not doing much with the piano.
Major: He may be a contemporary of Russell’s.
Stewart: He is. They knew each other . . .
Major: Russell, I believe, is about 80. Did you ever have anything to do with the youth orchestra?
Stewart: No.
Major: Or the Community Music School ?
Stewart: No, Winnie—that was Winnie Baldwin’s thing. She really got that going and supported getting instruments so the children could have something to play and then having the musicians teach them. That really was her baby. We made a contribution, the auxiliary did, from what we had left over from fund raising, and I don’t know if the community—I don’t know if that still is in existence or not.
Major: I don’t know if there’s any connection between that effort and what is now the Academy of Music. I have . . .
Stewart: The one on … no, no there’s no connection.
Major: No relation.
[6]
Stewart: No, they were both—I don’t know how long the Community Music School lasted, and it did provide a good foundation for some of the musicians, but this is fairly new, the one on Colley Avenue .
Major: It’s been there ever since I’ve lived here, which is almost 15 years.
Stewart: Has it been that long? In my mind there is no connection between the two, and Winnie always was there to get her donation from us; you can be sure of that. Winnie, in her younger days, she was a whirlwind for getting things done.
Major: I gather.
Stewart: She really was. You interviewed her, I guess.
Major: I have, yea.
Stewart: Well that’s good; she could tell you a lot of things. What else now?
Major: I’m interested in the process that resulted in the merger of the various different groups in 1979, the groups that became the Virginia Orchestra Group. What can you tell me about that whole process and about how it became a successful merger?
Stewart: It was a very delicate thing. There was not a lot of yes, yes, yes, we want to do this from everybody because we had our conductor, which was Russell Stanger, and over there on the Peninsula was Cary McMurran, and down in Virginia Beach there was Walter Noona. He was very popular down there, very popular. He would give kind of a pops concert-like program down there, and since we had that sort of thing going on here, we thought that might be satisfactory but it really—he wasn’t playing as much as he did down there. And they became the three people . . . Cary McMurran, he was about ready to retire anyway, and the Peninsula was not terribly active in anything, including supplying people to come over here and be part of our leagues and things like that, so that was not the problem. The real trouble came from Virginia Beach and us -- who was going to do what. How the pie was going to be cut, and the board handled all of that. We didn’t do anything.
Major: The big board.
Stewart: The big board, yes. We didn’t do anything in the way of giving our opinion or suggesting things. Maybe people did privately, but we never discussed it as a group. We did say that we would be glad to have the help with the people from Virginia Beach and the help with the people from the Peninsula, and we arranged to have some meetings down there and some meetings in here, and maybe there were a few over there, but that didn’t last very long. There became a lot of acrimony over Walter Noona, what he should or shouldn’t do. In fact, he had hopes of becoming the conductor, I think he really did. So, we just
[7]
did the best we could with the volunteer help. Have you ever heard of Ernestine Middleton?
Major: Know her well.
Stewart: Ask her about that, she became . . .
[pause in interview]
Major: I have talked to Ernestine, and although I knew her as a board member of the Friends of the ODU Library, I didn’t know that she was up to her ears in the symphony league.
Stewart: She really was, and you know she is a very… gentle but determined person, and she tries to take people’s feelings into consideration, and that’s what needed to be done at that time. There was a lot of bad feeling among a lot of people which was really a shame. And eventually I think they decided that they’re not going to be. . .
[Off topic conversation. Mr. Stewart enters the room.]
You know that the president is automatically a member of the board.
Major: Yes.
Stewart: So that they went to all those meetings when all this trouble was about and all this trying to get it together. It really made a lot of sense to do this, to form a area orchestra. They weren’t getting paid much. I don’t know what they did with Walter, and our musicians weren’t being paid very much. So it was the sensible thing to do, but it did trample a lot of people’s feelings. So eventually there was just Russell, and Walter came to play a few pops concerts, I think. But then, I think, he--Did he continue with what he was doing down at the Beach?
Mr. Stewart: No, he did not, see there was a complete merger, and he--the deal was that he was going to do the pops because that’s what he had been doing at the Beach, and Russell was going to do the classical. And Mr. McMurran over in Newport News , who had been soldiering on over there for many years and years, was just very gracious about the whole thing, as I remember.
Stewart: Yes he was; he just sort of stopped. Yea.
Mr. Stewart: Maybe they might have had him do a concert every now and then.
Stewart: He was made a conductor ex something; they gave him the title of emeritus and that sort of thing.
[8]
Mr. Stewart: Then there was a falling out with Walter over his salary.
Stewart: Is that what it was, salary?
Mr. Stewart: I think so . . . yea. When that happened . . . they couldn’t reach a contract; they could not agree, so I guess that’s when they got—that’s when he left.
Stewart: Yea, and many of the people who were in the league to be supportive of the Symphony as you know it now, they withdrew. A lot of those Virginia Beach women were workers; it was too bad.
Mr. Stewart: They got a whole infusion of new people when the Virginia Beach crew came, and soon left.
Stewart: Were we trying to make it work for at least a year?
Mr. Stewart: Oh yea, it worked for a couple of years.
Stewart: A couple of years.
Mr. Stewart: Walter Noona was in high school with me, actually. I was couple of years or two ahead of him. He was known then as the big, quite the pianist, but he had a combo he played . . .
Major: Still does.
Mr. Stewart: Yea, still does that; his venture into classical or semi-classical pops.
Stewart: Now, another place where the league met, I must tell you about this was at the Hermitage. Has anyone told you about that?
Major: Oh really. No, I didn’t know that.
Stewart: We left the museum finally, and then we went to the Hermitage which has a very nice kitchen and a very lovely dining room, and you know that room that has a beautiful linen, linen woodwork. It’s sort of toward the back, that’s where we would meet. That was a lovely place to meet, and we stayed there for years and years. Virginia Diehn, wife of Ludwig Diehn the composer, did you ever meet her?
Major: She was gone by the time I came here, but I met Mr. Diehn when he was in the process of making his gift to the university.
[9]
Stewart: Okay, so she had died by then. She was the one that got all of the speakers. So you went from the conductor speaking to anybody that Virginia would get, and that was very helpful to—she felt like she was supporting Ludwig to be able to do that, and she worked hard at getting—we had—all the musicians would come. Georgia Ryder from . . .
Major: Norfolk State .
Stewart: Norfolk State came, right. She was a wonderful speaker. Just all kinds of people came to speak. Sometimes the musicians would come and bring their instruments as they are wont to do, and we heard them, and we stayed there a long time. And then we had to leave there. I think we were being too hard on the place, high heels and things like that on the rugs and what have you; we were not too acceptable. Well, we ended up back at the Chrysler Museum , and we’ve been there until we went over to WHRO. All the time we’ve had somebody we’ve had to provide refreshments, and I have been part of that, as many people have, and it’s been a good experience. The musicians or whoever came would stay, except JoAnn; she always has to leave in such a hurry. She’s such a busy woman; she will stay a little bit, and then she has to go. I don’t think we’ll ever get anybody that the community feels about like they do about JoAnn.
Major: I think that’s right. I can see a lot of ways in which the symphony league and its antecedents really insured the viability of the symphony. Is there anything more along that line that you think would be helpful to say about how the league assured the symphony’s viability?
Stewart: Well, we always have made a contribution, and in fact for a while, there we were the largest contributors to the, the—what is it called…the general fund? We had done that in a number of ways. We first started out by having these little things in the fall . . . fall… bazaar that’s the word I’m looking for; Fall Bazaar, usually was at Talbot Hall.
Major: Right, I know.
Stewart: And you would can things and pickles and bake and do little needlework things.
Major: Gosh.
Stewart: And have lunch… and we would maybe make a $1,000 or $2,000. We didn’t have a lot of money—there were dues, of course. And when they started out, I think--what were the dues? a dollar, then it went up to three, it was just ridiculous.
Major: Yea, yea.
[10]
Mr. Stewart: Have you told them about the very early days? When you first started?
Stewart: Well, sort a, yea with Walter Schenkman.
Major: Edgar Schenkman
Mr. Stewart: Did you tell them about how when we came back from being away?
Stewart: And how we bought those cheapest seats up at the top. I did. I told them all that.
Mr. Stewart: She joined the league, which was then called the Women’s Auxiliary.
Stewart: To the Norfolk Symphony and Choral Association.
Mr. Stewart: At age 26, wasn’t it? Or 25, because we came back here . . .
Stewart: Well, yea, soon to be 26 after we came back here.
Mr. Stewart: She along with her college roommate Katy McMillan who lives down in Virginia Beach . Both of them joined the league and would go to these after-concert parties, and I remember hearing one of those ladies saying to another one, “Have you seen our babies?” [Laughter]
Stewart: There were at that time many older women, and that’s still how it is, it seems to me.
Mr. Stewart: [Inaudible]
Major: Little did we imagine that we were going to be among the older ladies.
Stewart: No, no. Looking at our babies _________
Mr. Stewart: Did you tell them about the first ball?
Stewart: No. Do you know about the balls? You’ve heard about the Symphony Balls?
Major: No, no, I don’t know about the Symphony Balls.
Mr. Stewart: Money-raising.
[11]
Stewart: That’s what that thing—that thing got to be a bigger thing. The first one was Skitch Henderson, who came down to Pembroke Mall which was just opened, and we had it in the mall. They made people leave at an earlier time that day, and they scrubbed it down and right in the—where sort of a transept was, tables were put this way and this way, so he could be up here. We had the ball. He was terrific, and then people wanted him not to stop. [Laughter] He said, “My contract says such and such, folks; if you want to kick in such and such amount of money, I’ll stay.” And everybody laughed ha, ha, ha, but they didn’t do it.
Mr. Stewart: It was a black tie . . .
Stewart: Oh yea, black tie, yea.
Mr. Stewart: That was to be the big money raising project. [inaudible]
Stewart: We did that two years there, I think, and then Military Circle was being built, so we went there, and it wasn’t even finished.
Major: Oh my.
Stewart: They assured us it would be but it wasn’t. And that one took some doing, but we had a space, and we combined that with an auction, which was not a good thing to do. And we had one there, and then we went to Chrysler Hall. John Warner and Elizabeth Taylor came to there once. That was a big, big—people came to that.
Major: I guess so!
Stewart: She was very gracious. She came there when she was having a back problem, and we had a couple, maybe three there. Then they decided not to do that.
Mr. Stewart: I guess he was running for the Senate.
Stewart: Yes, he was, so that must have been a little urge for them to come down.
Major: Right. How effective do you think the league’s fundraising is now?
Stewart: It is primarily with the sale, the Raffle Sale of cars . . . and last year--this past year, I don’t think we even made $70,000 to give. It is a declining, a declining interest, it seems to me. We need to get a new project, but we do other things during the year that bring in money. What do we do?
[12]
Mr. Stewart: Over the years, there have been so many things. I always-- you have to forgive me for intruding on this, but if-- she has been so wrapped up in this thing, so active in it, over the years.
Stewart: Besides church, this has been my biggest wrap up.
Mr. Stewart: That I have done a lot of fetching and carrying and all that sort of thing. And when you talk about the ball, no fun at all to go to the ball if your wife is involved in putting it on because you don’t ever really get to sit back and enjoy it. There is always something that has to be done.
Stewart: One time there was one table short.
Major: Oh, gosh.
Stewart: The lady who got us, invited us to come out there, who was the manager or whatever she was, she was most efficient, and we were out there working and went home to put on our clothes; came back out again, and one of the tables needed to be filled, and I think there was all your law partners were at that table. What did we do? So we said—she said, we got her, she was there, she said, “Just give us a minute; we’ll put everything up,” I don’t remember if we got a table cloth or not, but we did have a seat, but that was just awful.
Mr. Stewart: It’s the little things that really get to you. [Laughter]
Major: Right.
Stewart: Then we stopped the balls. They were not as effective as we would have liked to have been. We never made a lot of money on them, $3,000 or $4,000.
Major: That’s a lot of work for $3,000 or $4,000.
Mr. Stewart: That’s the trouble with those projects. I used to sit back and watch and say, “Look at all the labor that’s going into this thing,” and the result of it is…as far as money raising, it would have a lot easier if everybody’d just said, “Well, let’s forget it; we’ll just pitch in a little bit more.”
Major: Right.
Stewart: It’s not like the King’s Daughters; it’s an entirely different breed of women who do this, and they’re all over the town, and they have people who have to go to bat and support it, and who can turn down a chance to help sick children? I mean that’s a . . .
[13]
Mr. Stewart: Now the question to ask ____ what’s the league, auxillary--league done to maintain the viability of the orchestra? One of the things is raise money, but early on their biggest job was to sell the tickets.
Stewart: I was telling her about that.
Major: She described the dining room table.
Mr. Stewart: The renewal campaign as it was divided into those who had already subscribed and were going to renew their subscriptions, then the efforts to get new subscribers, and I always dreaded that time of renewals because I lost my wife for a week— that period of time. [Laughter] I remember when Winnie Maddock came and suggested that some brochures be printed.
Stewart: That’s right; we didn’t even have brochures.
Mr. Stewart: Nobody had brochures; and everybody--some people said that would be a waste of money. She was astounded, but they got their brochures.
Stewart: One time a man named Harold, Harold Gerst?
Mr. Stewart: Mr. Gerst was a long-time president.
Stewart: What was his first name, not Harold? He at the end of the year got up and told the audience that we were so many dollars short from making the goal, and if everybody would just pitch in one dollar, that would be a big help, and they passed something …I have no idea…can you imagine that? How things have changed!
Mr. Stewart: I got a double-barrel because my law partner was the president of the symphony at an early time when Edgar Schenkman was still there, and they were still performing then at what is now the Opera House. It was then called the Center Theater . . . and I think he was president for at least a couple of years.
Stewart: More than once.
Major: Who was that?
Stewart: Luther White.
Mr. Stewart: His name was Luther White. Do you know Edie White?
Major: I certainly do.
Stewart: Her brother-in-law.
[14]
Mr. Stewart: That’s her brother-in-law.
Major: Really.
Mr. Stewart: Forrest White, her husband, was the older brother of Luther White. And Luther was a musician himself. He sang in our church choir. He was the one that got me into the choir back in 1959, I believe, it was or ’60, and played the piano, always interested in music and cultural activities, so he was the president. At that time they had-- there were no professionals involved in the running of the organization at all, and Mr. Nordlinger, Bill Nordlinger, who was one of the owners of Rices Department Store, was the business manager as a volunteer, and he spent a lot of time in our law office. We would see Mr. Nordlinger come in a couple of times a week, at least, to confer with Luther White, who was the president. The principal thing that the ladies did then, it seems to me, was to sell the tickets. That was their job, to get the tickets sold.
Stewart: Yea, we would have dinners and invite possible subscribers in your home.
Major: Oh, my gosh.
Stewart: Or we’d have a nice cocktail party, and the conductor was supposed to be there then, and I can remember--who’s the one that came after Russell?
Major: Richard Williams.
Stewart: Richard Williams, he would come. I guess Winston Dan would come, too. I don’t know whether they enjoyed that or not, but they did. They had to do some things, as everybody does.
Major: Sure. Is there anything more you can tell me about the Edgar Schenkman period? You talked a little bit about how he interacted with people. What else can you tell me about the Edgar Schenkman period?
Stewart: His wife, Marguerite, was the first chair. Did his son Peter play the cello? I think he did.
Mr. Stewart: You got the whole family. She was the first chair of the oboe?
Stewart: No, she was a violinist.
Major: She was the concertmaster, I believe.
Mr. Stewart: She was. Yea.
Major: Yea.
[15]
Mr. Stewart: They had a lot . . .
Stewart: They had five children; matter of fact, they were all musicians. Some of them were quite young when they were here. Peter played the cello and . . .
Mr. Stewart: And . . . who was the first chair? What did Ronald Marshall play?
Stewart: He played the viola.
Mr. Stewart: Yea.
Stewart: And then didn’t Doris Marshall Short come after Marguerite left?
Mr. Stewart: She played what, the violin?
Stewart: Yea.
Mr. Stewart: No, they were there together.
Stewart: They were together. Leonard Pennario.
Major: Yea, that was the name I was groping for.
Stewart: He was the one who opened the hall.
Major: Yea, the Chrysler Hall.
Mr. Stewart: He was a good friend of Russell Stanger’s.
Major: Tell me about the Russell Stanger period. What was that like?
Mr. Stewart: One of things you ought to have down on the Edgar Schenkman part; he was the conductor for a long time. He was the conductor when we arrived back here. He had succeeded Henry Coles Whitehead, who was a local.
Stewart: And we didn’t know him. No.
Mr. Stewart: But then, I don’t know whether he organized the orchestra in Richmond or not, but after a long period of time here, when the orchestra was essentially started in Richmond . I just don’t remember whether it was already going, and he went up there to conduct, or whether he got the thing started, and we got into a period where he was conducting in Richmond , and he was conducting in Norfolk . Apparently, it appeared to those in authority that the time in Richmond began to be extended and the time in Norfolk began to be contracted. I don’t think he moved to Richmond .
[16]
Stewart: Eventually he did.
Mr. Stewart: Eventually. That’s what led then to Russell Stanger coming.
Stewart: And he came with high credentials, remember he had been under Leonard Bernstein, and he’d been in Milwaukee some place there as an assistant or associate conductor. He was very personable. He had a terrible ego [Laughs]. I’ll tell you that.
Mr. Stewart: Still does.
Major: I was going to say, still does.
Mr. Stewart: But really a nice man.
Stewart: He was. Saving him his life was marrying his wife.
Mr. Stewart: Married a local lady, late in life, for both of them.
Stewart: Millie, Millie Stanger.
Major: Yes, I remember Millie.
Stewart: Our interior design store. He dated around here, you know. It was really good if you could be seen with Russell.
Major: Oh, he was very good looking. I’ve seen the pictures.
Stewart: Yes, he was a twin.
Major: Yes, still is [Laughs]
Stewart: And his mother was perfectly charming. She was just really nice.
Major: Do you have any idea how the Stanger period ended? Why it ended? What caused it to end?
Stewart: What would you say?
Mr. Stewart: I think probably it had to do with the fact that he was just here too long. It’s sort of like being a college president. They say that ten years is about the length of time a college president will last. And it’s just . . .
Stewart: I think there was some little problem with musicians sometimes. Yea, a little bit arrogant. I don’t know; there never any big blow ups that we knew of . . .
[17]
Mr. Stewart: I can’t remember how long Russell was the conductor.
Stewart: Was it 15 years?
Major: 1966 to 1980.
Stewart: ’56 . . .
Major: ’66 to 1980.
Mr. Stewart: So, all right, 14 years. He just kind of . . . you do the same thing over and over again; you kind of wear out, I suppose.
Stewart: You ought to talk to a musician who played for him. The gal who writes our newsletter—what is her name, whose husband just died?
Major: Fran Pedersen.
Stewart: She thought he was wonderful. She could tell you about—she is very straightforward—she could tell you about how he got on with musicians. She still admires him a great deal.
Major: She’s on my list to interview.
Stewart: Okay, well, interview her. I guess the board—you know how things get going—thinking well, you know, it’s really time for a change—but I don’t think there was any one incident that I had heard of.
Mr. Stewart: I think it just kind of developed over a period of time.
Stewart: And he was made . . .
Mr. Stewart: Janet Kriner. . .
Stewart: Janet Kriner played with him. Have you gone and talked to her?
Major: No, but she’s on my list, too. I haven’t talked with any of the musicians, yet.
Stewart: They will be able to tell you about their feelings.
Major: The next two guys were both short-timers. Richard Williams was here for six years, and Winston Dan Vogel for four years. Can you tell me why they were both short-timers?
[18]
Mr. Stewart: In the first place, Richard Williams was in the interview or in the process of an interview, and they had, I think, a fairly extensive list of people they ____ to interview. Was Clay Barr . . .?
Stewart: The president then . . .
Mr. Stewart: Acting at that time . . .
Stewart: I don’t remember.
Mr. Stewart: But Williams came down here, and the story I heard was that he interviewed, and they were suitably impressed, but they had other people they wanted to interview, and he let it be known that…he had other possibilities also. If they wanted him, they better sign him up.
Stewart: Oh, yea, I remember that . . .
Mr. Stewart: And so they panicked, and they signed him up, not that it wasn’t a good choice, but…I remember my—I was not on the inside, didn’t know anything about it, just what I heard . . . I heard there were all these people they wanted to interview . . .they were coming down…
Stewart: Yea, then we cut it short.
Mr. Stewart: Actually we already had some who were engaged to come down and conduct or something like that, and all of a sudden that was all over with, and here’s the new man. What happened, I don’t know why he left. . .
Stewart: His wife was not a musician. What did she do? She had some . . .
Mr. Stewart: She wasn’t a musician?
Stewart: No . . .
Major: I thought she was a composer.
Stewart: A composer . . . I think she was…
Mr. Stewart: That’s right.
Stewart: She was a good gal. I think there began to circulate things out that maybe he was a having an affair . . .
Mr. Stewart: Watch what you say there.
[19]
Stewart: Well, she’s wanting to know reasons, and they had children—three children, I think. They were going to Norfolk Academy , and I think money was always a problem for him. It would have to have been. And then they made a statement publicly, “I want you to know that we’re best friends. We are not only married, but we’re best friends,” you know that sort of statement; it was publicly made; I’m not making that up because I heard it. And soon he left, I don’t whether the board excused him, or whether he gave up or what, but he did, he did--their marriage did end.
Major: That I deduced from other conversations that I’ve had, and I did some snooping on Google to see what I could find out about him.
Stewart: Did he go—do you know where he went after he left here?
Major: Well, he’s in California somewhere. He has not had a fulltime conducting job since—he’s done other things, and he’s done some guest conducting. So, what about Winston Dan Vogel? He was another short-timer.
Mr. Stewart: He was just a product of the many interviews, I suppose…he came with what…you want to call it, a European background . . . he was born in Israel .
Stewart: Did he learn to conduct, did he learn his conducting in Israel , or did he come over here?
Mr. Stewart: I assume so. But boy, he really shook up the musicians.
Stewart: And a little bit autocratic, too.
Mr. Stewart: Some of those who had been there a long, long time. He let them know that their places—the fact that they had been there a long time didn’t necessarily mean that they couldn’t be supplanted by somebody else. Isn’t that true?
Stewart: I think that’s true. I don’t know of anybody that left [Laughter]
Mr. Stewart: No, I don’t—but I think he . . .
Stewart: He laid down the word. And then I--but we asked him to leave, what ended his. . .
Mr. Stewart: We didn’t renew his contract.
Stewart: Didn’t renew his contract. Then we started searching, and we got JoAnn.
[20]
Mr. Stewart: He was—as a matter of fact, he had a lot of people in the orchestra, I wouldn’t say a lot, a number of people who had been there for long periods of time, Sidney Berg.
Major: Oh, yes.
Mr. Stewart: He had played timpani—Sidney Berg came here from the University of Michigan to be the band instructor at Maury High School . I was there. [Laughter] He came in the middle or early 1940s, and he soon turned out the best marching band you could have in high school, and he expected all of his students—that was what they did. They were in the band. They had to study, of course, but their extracurricular activity was to be the band. It was going to be strictly a musical organization. He did away with the drum majorettes. He would play the timpani in the orchestra forever. For as long as we could remember.
Stewart: Yea, he did and the . . .
Mr. Stewart: The Kovners.
Stewart: Fred, the Kovners.
Mr. Stewart: Fred--Ed Kovner. He had a son, didn’t he, also?
Stewart: Maybe so.
Mr. Stewart: Ed Kovner played the flute.
Stewart: And what did his wife play? She played the violin.
Mr. Stewart: Yea, played the violin . . . so, strictly amateurs, semi-professional kind of thing.
Major: People who had other ways to make a living.
Mr. Stewart: Oh, yea.
Stewart: You had to have that.
Mr. Stewart: Ed Kovner taught . . .
Stewart: Engineering . . .
Mr. Stewart: Engineering over at Old Dominion. They had something then they called the Technical Institute, which was not a four year program. They taught people about air conditioning.
[21]
Major: I remember that; I remember reading about it.
Mr. Stewart: But when Winston Dan came, he let some of those old timers know that he was in charge; that is, Winston Dan was in charge.
Stewart: And again, musicians will tell you more about their feelings. He was always very pleasant when you met him socially. Did he give pre-concert lectures? I don’t remember him coming; maybe he came to, did a few. At that time we over there at the Hermitage, and Virginia Diehn was seeing that it was--and I must tell you, our feelings about Russell as a pre-concert lecturer. He was awful. [Laughter] He would wander all over the place, you know… whereas you know JoAnn is just—tells you exactly what you need to hear— to make everything open up for you. He just was not a good speaker that way; he couldn’t help it, I don’t think.
Mr. Stewart: He was very fluid in a social setting, I thought, I mean…as long as you understand he’s the center of attention.
Major: Well, yea. And he has an inexhaustible fund of war stories.
Stewart: Yea, right; people like to hear that . . .
Mr. Stewart: Delightful. We haven’t seen him lately. We need to look him up and find out what he’s been doing with himself.
Major: There was a long time, I understand, that people here expected the conductor of the symphony to reside locally and to conduct only this orchestra and then when—can you tell me what happened to change that feeling so that JoAnn could come, because JoAnn has never only been here.
Mr. Stewart: That’s a—she was the first who wasn’t in that situation, being a resident here and conducting this orchestra only.
Stewart: And that was probably because she came with other commitments.
Mr. Stewart: She wouldn’t come any other way.
Stewart: She was conducting the women’s organization in San Francisco and the Long Beach Symphony, and she had commitments to them, and she felt like she couldn’t break them. Eventually she did . . . and she was on an airplane back and forth to be able to do it, you know.
Major: Sure.
Mr. Stewart: I think she just wouldn’t do it under any other circumstances.
[22]
Major: Right. What was it—do you know what the perspective was that made people here think that the conductor should only be here?
Mr. Stewart: Because it had always been that way.
Major: I see.
Stewart: I think so. Maybe they began to have feelings like that when Edgar left to do both orchestras here.
Mr. Stewart: Yea, that’s why he left was because he was spending more time up there than he was spending here. That’s why they didn’t renew his contract.
Stewart: Yea.
Mr. Stewart: Don’t you think the people have just found that it’s easier to move around these days than it was 40 years ago. There are more airplanes flying everywhere you want to go. And if you have the gumption and enough energy to accomplish something like that . . . I suppose that’s just the way of life.
Stewart: Yea.
Mr. Stewart: She’s the first one that did that except for that period of time when Edgar Schenkman was going back and forth to Richmond .
Major: I wondered if something caused the local people to recognize that that was the way conductors did their careers now.
Stewart: Probably.
Major: Did they have the-- who was the consultant who helped with that search? It was the man who was the concertmaster at Boston and then he went to . . .
Stewart: Joseph Silverstein.
Major: Yea, yea, yea. I wondered if that was one of the realities that he introduced.
Mr. Stewart: I think it all had to do with her personality and her ability.
Major: Maybe so . . .
Mr. Stewart: I think they were so delighted to have her that they were willing to do these— I’d love to have her live here and be here all the time. Who wouldn’t like to have her around as much as you can? And I’m delighted that she has a place to live here.
[23]
Stewart: And she has one in Buffalo , too.
Mr. Stewart: But I think it had more to do with her own ability and personality.
Stewart: Maybe somebody else can tell you that for sure, I don’t know.
Major: After years and years passed with first, very much an amateur orchestra, and then semi-professional and so on, finally in 1986 the orchestra became full-time and salaried. What can you tell me about how that happened finally? Did something change in the ‘80s or what?
Stewart: Well, when was the strike?
Mr. Stewart: Well, whenever Tom Reel came.
Stewart: You know Tom Reel who plays the bass?
Major: No.
Mr. Stewart: He was the one who came here _____ library. He was basically sent here by the musicians’ union. I think the strike was the time when . . .
Stewart: When Jerry, what was Jerry’s last name—the one that went to Richmond to do some fundraising and found a job, was with us a long time as the manager. Jerry Haynie. Didn’t that happen then? We just kept feeling like we were getting on top of things; this had happened more than once. I don’t know how long it had been before the budget was balanced on a yearly basis. We may have done that one or two times before we got Carla, but we were all very up about things, and then this negotiation business came about, and they were holding out for whatever they were holding out for, and it just ruined everything. And I think they got the money. Jerry, Jerry was at that time he was a very conscientious manager; people liked him a lot. And he had somebody in charge of working on grants, and that person lost their cool, their head or something, and the grant money wasn’t processed in time to get there. For the want of a deadline, we lost a big grant. That was another blow. But you know many people say, who make contributions, that unless they can see that there is something to be done about getting the orchestra on a firm footing, they’re not as willing to give. They just aren’t. I mean people who give big time things.
[Off topic conversation]
Mr. Stewart: Well, Martha has resisted being on the board of directors. I think she was for a little while, weren’t you?
Stewart: Yes, I got on about 1969, and somebody from the League should be there, they thought, besides the president. Winnie got me to do that, and I came
[24]
on. That was quite an experience to find out how things really worked. And then we had a little girl who got leukemia, and when we found out she had leukemia--she was nine years old when she was diagnosed--and she was going to the National Institutes of Health, and we were going back and forth with that—Melissa Warfield, the doctor, the hematologist down here, said that’s where she should go, and you have to go before any kind of treatment is done, and I’ll help you make arrangements if this happens. There was no way I could do anything. We had seven children, and when I was home I had to be mother and wife, and I couldn’t go out—although I went out to the pre-concert lectures when I could, and we went to the symphony when we could. So she died a year later, and then I became president of the league.
Mr. Stewart: Again. You were president of the league when Sarah got sick.
Stewart: Yea, then I had to stop that; I had just been elected president of the league . . . and then I got to be president again.
Mr. Stewart: But what I was going to say is that I think she found out that being on the board-- what she calls the big board was about fundraising . . . more than anything else. And she preferred to do other things.
Stewart: I’m really not good at fundraising. I just, I am not—I’ll do anything. I was in charge of the musicians’ refreshments until I found out, I’ve got cancer now, and before I started all my chemotherapy and surgery and all this other stuff. But now I’m beginning to feel better, and I am in a good remission, but I’m doing alternative treatment down at the Bahamas where I do shots that have no side effects. Chemotherapy was about to kill me. Anyway, so I hope that someday in the future I can help with that again and be more active doing things, but I don’t know.
Mr. Stewart: She has arranged more flowers.
Stewart: Oh flowers, yes…
Mr. Stewart: How many bouquets did you all have to make for that gala?
Stewart: For that gala we had when . . .
Mr. Stewart: When Renee Fleming . . .
Major: Oh, yea.
Stewart: When Renee Fleming came.
Major: I was there.
[25]
Stewart: Well, my committee and I did that, all were league members under my supervision. I would make them do it right, you know some women [Laughs] See that space there?
Major: I would rather ask people for money than to arrange flowers.
Stewart: --arrange flowers.
Major: And I would do it better, too.
Stewart: Well good; we each have . . .
Mr. Stewart: Did you tell them about the time when Luther was president and tried to sell out the house?
Stewart: No. When Luther was president they . . .
Mr. Stewart: I think I’ve got this story right. Now this would have been back in the early 1960s. My partner was the president of the symphony, and the story I heard was that they had received sort of a challenge from the Norfolk Foundation. Oh, I know there was a desire to be able to bring some, some name musicians, soloists, but there was never any money to do that so the Norfolk Foundation said, well we’ll give you, I think the figure was $10,000, which seemed like a lot of money at that time, on the condition that, that—I thought it was that they sell enough subscriptions to fill up the hall.
Stewart: That was a condition, and I just don’t remember whether absolutely every seat was filled.
Mr. Stewart: I think they got the money, and boy that was a real big deal!
Major: It would have to be. That is a big hall.
Stewart: It is.
Mr. Stewart: This was before Chrysler Hall was built.
Major: Oh, really.
Mr. Stewart: I think it was when we were still over there in the Center Theater.
Stewart: Chrysler Hall was opened in ’72.
Mr. Stewart: Was it?
Stewart: Wasn’t it?
[26]
Major: Yea.
Mr. Stewart: This was before that, but the Center Theater--you know how many seats the opera house has . . .
Major: 1600.
Mr. Stewart: Yea, so it was kind of a small place . . .
Stewart: And the seats didn’t squeak then either [Laughter]
Mr. Stewart: I think they got the grant whether they sold all the tickets or not. I think they did get the money, and it seems to me we always had pretty good soloists, had some people who came. All you had to do was look at Mrs. Ferebee’s piano . . .
Stewart: Did you read her book?
Major: Oh yes, I’m sure I did.
Stewart: And Elise Margolius’ addition to that?
Major: Yes, I read that—read both of them and took copious notes and so on. I have been through enough so that I have a five or six page chronology that I’ve assembled. I wouldn’t be able to ask any questions at all if I hadn’t done that. That’s my background for my research for that, but I did hear about Mrs. Ferebee’s piano, which I gather is not in the community any longer.
Stewart: No.
Mr. Stewart: No, Connie gave it away to a niece or somebody like that.
Stewart: Somebody in Texas . I think she offered it to the museum. I think she did, but the museum didn’t take it for some reason or another or couldn’t take it. They’ve got a Steinway there that was provided by…what’s his name, the piano-giver?
Major: Yea.
Mr. Stewart: Yea, Mr. Sloane, E. K.
Stewart: Mr. Sloane.
Major: The church piano-giver.
[27]
Stewart: Yea, that’s right any organization that makes a few—you’ve got one at your church that he gave.
Major: Yea, correct.
Stewart: We didn’t qualify at my church because we hadn’t been doing enough of the community-type things. You know like bringing people in for . . .
Mr. Stewart: We’ve got another thing that Martha did. You ought to tell them about those musicians that you squired around.
Stewart: Oh, I did. That really meant a lot to me, and I would tell them a little bit about Norfolk .
Major: Sure.
Stewart: [Inaudible]
Mr. Stewart: Some of them were extremely approachable, just as easy to know. The two that I remember like that were Isaac Stern; he was here for several days. She was ferrying him around all over the place. She went down to pick him up and take him to the concert—just great.
Stewart: You know how they have the little hall down there . . .
Major: Yes.
Stewart: Where they some rehearsals?
Major: Yes.
Stewart: Well they were rehearsing a violin concerto. He was quite funny and—what was it? Well any way, he was down there rehearsing and…with our concertmaster—what’s his name?
Major: Vahn Armstrong.
Stewart: Vahn Armstrong, yea. He was playing on a violin that Mrs. Darden had lent--had given to the symphony for people with special talent to use. Connie Darden, she played in a little quartet for years here, and there was a little passage there where Vahn and Mr. Stern were just playing together, leaning into each other, you know, really you could feel it, it made you have chills. I was so glad to see that and I called up to see if she could be told that; she was not too swift anymore. The lady said, “Well, I’ll try to make them know that that had happened, and if I get through, I know that she will be very pleased.” That really
[28]
did give me a thrill to see him playing with Vahn on a violin that Connie Darden had given.
Major: Oh, yea.
Mr. Stewart: Then James Galway . . .
Stewart: I told her about that too . . . When we left him at the hotel he said to me, “Well, this is good bye then,” I said, “Yes. I guess it is,” and he kissed me. [Laughter]
Major: Well, great.
Stewart: Wouldn’t that be special to you?
Major: Yes, yes.
Mr. Stewart: He had to reach up to do it because he’s pretty short.
Major: Yes, he is. He is short. His wife is considerably taller than he is.
Stewart: Oh, is she?
Major: Yea, she a flutist, also.
Stewart: Yes. I knew that she was. He was always grousing about his wife wouldn’t like to see what he was eating at the reception they had for him.
Mr. Stewart: The dessert. [Laughter]
Stewart: He was trying to lose weight.
Mr. Stewart: Those ladies from the auxiliary and the league…you wouldn’t believe all the things they’ve done. I mean just anything, any little grubby thing that needs to be done—address all those envelopes, stuff all those envelopes, get those brochures out, sell those tickets.
Mr. Stewart: And we usher, one of the good things we do is usher for the loads of school buses that come in for the school concerts.
Major: Really.
Stewart: Yea, fourth and fifth grades come -- that’s all -- just the fourth and fifth grades, and they’ve been doing that for years.
[29]
Mr. Stewart: All those refreshments, give all those parties. The after-concert parties they don’t have anymore, but they used to have them in these peoples homes.
Stewart: I told them all about that.
Major: Yea.
Mr. Stewart: They were a lot of fun. They might not have been so much fun for the ones who had to put them on [Laughter] but it certainly was…
Stewart: I remember one time it was somebody’s birthday, the conductor’s birthday or one of the violinists. Somebody that everybody at the party knew, and so we were singing Happy Birthday, and we happened to have in our midst a soprano of some volume, and she just beat us all down to the ground. She ended up singing by herself. [Laughter] It was quite remarkable.
Mr. Stewart: What else did they do? They used to give a musicians’ party at someone’s home. Mary Thrasher had it at her home for years and years.
Stewart: Yes, we would meet down there at the Huette thing now. It’s really hard to get—especially not because of the house size so much, but that is a major factor, but there is no place for people to park.
Major: That’s right.
Stewart: You know places out in Algonquin and off of North Shore Road ; they just don’t have space like that.
Major: That’s right.
Stewart: So, they’re happy with this.
Major: Are there other things that you thought that I might ask about or that you would like to talk about?
Stewart: I don’t know, but it’s just added a dimension to my life that I will forever be grateful just to have been a part of the league so that I can be a part of what I’ve experienced with the symphony and it’s just—I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I wish I could leave a million dollars to them, but I can’t.
Major: Oh, yes.
Mr. Stewart: It’s just been a hand to mouth, scratch . . .
Stewart: It seemed to me, yes.
[30]
Mr. Stewart: Squeeze every dollar; be in debt all the time.
Major: Yes, right.
Mr. Stewart: On the verge of bankruptcy. [Laughter]
Major: But there are plenty of orchestras who are no longer on the verge.
Stewart: That’s right.
Major: We’re doing well.
Stewart: I think Carla has been wonderful.
Major: I think so; I think she’s very good at what she does.
Stewart: She knows what she is doing.
Major: I think so.
Mr. Stewart: Well, I remember a few years back we, for some reason or another we were in New Orleans . I guess I was attending some sort of conference.
Stewart: Yes.
Mr. Stewart: And at the hotel the New Orleans Symphony was going to play, and pretty soon—a little bit more this was going to be the first concert they . . .
Stewart: A re-opening night.
Mr. Stewart: Reconstituted, it had gone broke -- out of existence for a year or two, and they were starting it up again, so we went to that concert, and I heard later on it went broke again. It didn’t have anything to do with the storm either. It was before that.
Major: Right, long ago, that is 10 or 15 years ago.
Mr. Stewart: So I guess we really are lucky to have endured all these years. When they had this musicians’ strike, did we have to cancel some concerts?
Stewart: Maybe one, it wasn’t a lot. It was just devastating.
Mr. Stewart: The musicians were right; they needed to be paid good money.
Stewart: They really did.
[31]
Mr. Stewart: But there was a reaction from some people who were just pouring their life’s blood as volunteers and… she wasn’t one of them. It didn’t bother her at all, but there were some people who . . . were offended by it, let me put it that way. They felt like they were . . .
Stewart: Just for fun why don’t you interview Tom Reel?
Major: That would be good. Maybe we’re finished.
Stewart: Okay.
END OF INTERVIEW
Top |
