Major: This is Jean Major. I’m talking with Cathy Walsh, on December 16, 2005, in the afternoon at the Virginia Beach Central Library. Tell me how your involvement with the symphony and the symphony league started.
Walsh:
Well, I became first involved as a concertgoer. My husband and I visited here a lot while my in-laws were living and eventually moved here, and one of my mother-in-law’s big passions was the Virginia Symphony. So we started going with them to concerts, and that love of music was kindled in me at a very early age. I was a flutist, so I became a real fan, if you will, as a concertgoer. And then, when I changed careers and went into financial services, which is all about networking and working with people of similar interests and backgrounds, one of the logical groups for me to get to know better and have a semi-professional relationship with was the Virginia Symphony League. And I became involved in that by just going to a volunteer group get-together to recruit people for all of the not-for-profits held at the Chrysler Museum . Ann Robin was president of the symphony league at that time, and we talked, and before I knew it, I was not only a member but I was elected as assistant treasurer running the car raffle.
Major: So when did you start your involvement with the symphony league?
Walsh:
I think it was about 1999. Somewhere between 98 and 99.
Major: It seems to me when I met you, you were working as a stockbroker, and I met you through Helen Sonenshine.
Walsh:
Yes.
Major: And you are still involved in the symphony league. Have you done anything with the symphony itself? With the board, or however that works?
Walsh:
Yes, yes. I was assistant treasurer for two and a half years, which was one and a half terms. Three years, which was one and a half terms. And then I became president-elect of the symphony where you were job shadowing the president for a year, and then I’ve just finished a two year stint as president of the league, I mean president of the symphony league. And during that three-year period, first as an observer, and then as a participant, the league president is a member of the big board, as we call it at the Virginia Symphony.
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Major: The big board?
Walsh:
Right. And representing the league, we can have motions, enter into the discussions, participate in all of the concerns of the board.
Major: How often does the big board meet?
Walsh:
Well, that has changed over time. I think they were meeting . . . initially they were meeting almost monthly. And then under John Morison’s interim executive director, he pointed out that that was putting an undue burden on the staff, to support that many meetings, in terms of all the paperwork, and the telephone calls, and the reservations, et cetera. And he wanted to move to quarterly meetings. Well, as a compromise, the board said every other month. The reason being that due to a lot of turmoil on the staff level, the board had felt a need to be much more hands on in the day-to-day administration of the symphony. Now they are meeting quarterly, but since I rotated off the symphony league presidency, I’m no longer a member of the big board. I have been invited to serve instead on the trustees council.
Major: I, I was looking at the symphony homepage yesterday, and I noticed the trustees council, really, for the first time. And what is the trustees council?
Walsh:
Well, they’re friends of the symphony, but they’re not involved in the day-to-day management issues nor the liabilities of being on the symphony board. They’re mainly supporters in the community who are willing to put in a good word, to assist somewhat in fund raising, and to make a significant financial commitment to the symphony. We meet- -I’m not sure whether they’re going to meet quarterly or just twice a year, but to be kept abreast of what’s going on and to be advocates in the community.
Major: In the time when you worked actively as an officer with the league, I heard you say you started as the assistant treasurer, which makes sense in view of your financial background. Was that in fact one of your particular areas of expertise? Is that one of the areas where you’ve always contributed a good deal to the league?
Walsh:
Not particularly. There’s a difference that’s clear to me but not necessarily to the people who are heading up nominations committees that when you’re counseling people about their life insurance or other insurance needs or about their investing and retirement needs or about estate planning, you have to know the numbers; you have to know the formula; you spend a lot of time on the math. But I’m not a bookkeeper or an accountant. And so while I understood money and I was able to advise them on how to get a little bit more yield out of their stable funds, the stretch for me was to try to figure out how to . . . I guess it was a double entry ledger. And I never did exactly figure it out but my, my totals always seemed to balance, and that was good. I mean I might wait three hours to find the last penny, but they worked.
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Major: So if financial, if financial management wasn’t your particular expertise . . .
Walsh:
Well I was asked at … if that’s what you’re driving at – excuse me for interrupting. The assistant treasurer is … has a number of responsibilities beyond just keeping the books – like the car raffle. You’re an active member of the car raffle committee. The major treasurer, the main treasurer, of the Virginia Symphony League is responsible for the league’s overall books, the boutique, the dues, and ultimately the records of the car raffle flow through that. But the budget of the league might be more like 50,000 with money flowing in and out. The responsibilities for the assistant treasurer, keeping track of the car raffle, is usually somewhat more like 130 to 140,000 flowing in and out.
Major: I did not realize that the assistant treasurer was responsible mainly for the raffle.
Walsh:
And that’s fair because that is a lot of activity, especially when you’re trying to keep track of the -- reconciling the number of tickets sold with the receipts.
Major: I gather…I gather you live in Virginia Beach , and as long as you lived in this area, you’ve lived in Virginia Beach ?
Walsh:
Um-hmm. Let me backtrack a little bit more to the assistant treasurer because this is really interesting for me, too. In addition to running the numbers and processing all of the checks and the deposits and so on, and serving on the car raffle committee, and just pitching in wherever you needed to, that position files all the paperwork and documentation with the state’s charitable gaming commission. Because when you run a raffle like this, you’re suppose to get a permit from the state, and you’re suppose to file quarterly and annual reports, and you have to renew the application. And over the period of time that I’ve been involved in that, they’ve become increasingly sophisticated and more detailed. So that’s almost a full time volunteer responsibility in and of itself.
Major: I can appreciate that.
Walsh:
So you were going to ask me about Virginia .
Major: How long have you lived in this area?
Walsh:
We moved here in 1989. My in-laws retired here. And we would visit them once or twice a year, probably since about 1980.
Major: I have been… in the margins of the symphony league now for a couple of years, and I noticed that it seems to be overwhelmingly a women’s organization, which is fine. Can you give me an assessment of the importance of the contributions of women in this community to the continued viability of the symphony?
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Walsh:
This goes back almost as long as the symphony, which is probably in its 86th year of operation, and in that era women were not likely to hold careers. Their role was to raise a family and contribute to the community. So there were an awful lot of very skilled, effective, organized women who donated their services to good causes like the symphony. And they were critically involved in drumming up volunteer support, in getting the financial backing going, and serving on the board, although that tended to be more of a male role, with the prestige on it, and then tending to the many volunteer needs of the symphony because they didn’t have money to hire paid staff. And to this day, one of the responsibility areas is providing musicians refreshments during the intermission at the concerts, the masterwork series concerts. We have a guest artist services where we would chauffer the visiting guest artists from the airport to their hotel, from the hotel to the concert hall, and anywhere else that they needed to go. And then we also . . . a lot of our members behind the scenes worked with young musicians who were, you know, on the fringes economically, putting them up in their homes or helping them find inexpensive places to live. So, I don’t know that from an administrative era, you could point back through the records of the board and see the contributions of the women. But when you see the legacy of what they created and how this organization still functions, it’s really impressive. There are a number of people who are very elderly now in the league who were extraordinarily instrumental in getting that program up and going. One of the most effective fundraisers, probably to this day, is Winnie Baldwin. And she was around, if not at the beginning of the league, close to it.
Major: That’s interesting. And you were, or are, a career woman?
Walsh:
I’m no longer working for pay (both laugh) is the way I would put it. I have worked in several extraordinarily demanding and high profile work areas to the point that it had an effect on my health and on my family. And there came one of those door openings and closings that allowed me to exit from that particular responsibility, and thanks to the grace of God, I have a little more financial security in the household now, so I no longer feel driven to earn the money.
Major: The records that I have about the symphony’s recent history indicate that musicians in the orchestra were put on salary in 1985. So that for the first time in 1985 there’s a full-time salaried orchestra. I know that that’s before your time with the league. Do you know how it happened? Because the symphony had been established for a long, long time by then.
Walsh:
Well, it was a community-based orchestra, I believe, at one point, where there were talented musicians, but they wouldn’t necessarily be called professional musicians. And then there were- -I’m going on heresay; I wasn’t here through all of this, but there were three community orchestras that banded together and became the Virginia Symphony Group, or the Virginia Orchestra
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Group, or whatever their legal entity is, and that made for more stability, perhaps fewer musicians, but more stability among all of them. It was my pleasure and privilege to know Georgia Ryder. We were seatmates at the symphony and got to talking over the years. She was the former chairman of the Department of Music at Norfolk State University . And she would tell me these stories about how, to build her music program, she would partner with the, I guess it was Russell Stanger at that time, or whoever it was at the Virginia Symphony, so that they could put together a package that would make this location attractive to high quality musicians. And she was able to recruit people like Steve Carlson and Patti, and a number of others to the community because of those joint operations.
Major: Gerry Errante?
Walsh:
Right, although he’s not currently a member of the symphony.
Major: No he isn’t, but I am told he came here to be the principle clarinetist. I meant to ask you, my next question was, how did the symphony’s partnership with Norfolk State develop. And in the conversations you had, you’ve had with Georgia Ryder, do you have a sense of how that actually got started?
Walsh:
I felt that she was the mover and shaker. That she was hired to come build the school of music or the department of music, and being a lover of music and also a very shrewd and astute woman, she pushed her agenda through, with a lot of these wheeling-dealing type approaches. I don’t have another history of Norfolk State . . . Harold- -was it Wilson, Harold Wilson, -- no, no -- the retired president of Norfolk State .
Major: Harrison Wilson
Walsh:
Harrison Wilson. Sorry. Was there for an awfully long time, so he must of hired her.
Major: And given that this started before your time, the full time salaried orchestra, is it your observation that that made it easier to recruit musicians nationally because there was, is a full time salaried position?
Walsh:
Yes. However having said that it’s full time does not make it easy for anybody to come in to this as a living wage.
Major: Well, I know what the salary is.
Walsh:
Right. And so yes, that undoubtedly made it easier, but it’s not easy. There is such a dearth of concert, full time concert orchestra positions, that we have more applicants than we can possibly hire. But that doesn’t mean that it’s a stable financial situation for anybody.
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Major: So, auditions now are quite competitive?
Walsh:
So I understand. I have not heard recent figures over the last year or so. I guess the last information that I remember came from John Morison’s tenure, when he was talking about the amazing turnout for some violinist positions that drew from five countries as well as all throughout the United States . And we’re not talking about a $50,000 a year job. We’re talking about 26 to 30.
Major: Half of that. That’s true. I wonder if I can ask you some of what you know about previous conductors. In the time before JoAnn Falletta there were two conductors, Richard Williams from 1980 to 86, and Winston Dan Vogel, from 86 to 90. Each served short terms, and I wondered do you know why that was?
Walsh:
No I can’t speak to that. I’ve heard one or two mentions, including, probably, just most recently, but the . . . the people who would know are long time members of the board of directors, and they have always been very careful not to be indiscreet, shall we say.
Major: OK. I was interested to learn that, for a long time the expectation of the leadership for this symphony, was that whoever the conductor was, whoever the music director was, would come settle locally, and that the Virginia Symphony would be his primary professional association. Are you aware of that perspective from even the recent past?
Walsh:
No. And I don’t know at what point that may have changed, but for the entire time that I’ve been associated with the board, the expectation, the reality, has been recognized that, to have a conductor of that caliber, for what we want, we have to share. And I think, as you look across the industry, I remember reading the Wall Street Journal article about the music directors, or some other major national publication, even the big guys have two or three orchestras that they’re working for.
Major: They do.
Walsh:
So I think it’s more recognition that that’s the way it has to be. And it also poses a lot of problems for the up and coming generation of conductors, you know, to try to get a break, you know, at a good orchestra.
Major: That’s true.
Walsh:
But the names are what attract in many cases the audiences.
Major: Over the history of the, what is now the symphony league, I believe that it started out being named the women’s committee, was at one time called the women’s
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auxiliary, and now the symphony league. What do you see that this organization and its various incarnations has contributed to the viability of the symphony?
Walsh:
Well, we’ve been sort of the farm team in many cases for the women advancing to the board of directors. So I think that this is kind of like a proving ground where they get to know you and what you can contribute to the wider needs of the board. Since John Morison’s tenure, he really had the board focus on its own board development and how to become more functional, and among the issues they addressed was that the problem that the board had far outgrown the actual core of people who were attending and doing the work. And that’s when they made the decision to have a more clear-cut distinction between the board of directors and the trustees’ council. For the people who just wanted the name and the honor and, you know, could only afford a little bit of time, they were offered the option, you know, maybe it’s more appropriate for you to be on this new trustees council – would you like that? And so we now have a smaller working board. The turnover, therefore, is smaller, and there are not as many opportunities. But it is a much more effective organization, and so you’ll notice that a lot of the past presidents of the symphony league are current board members. What was the rest of the question again?
Major: What, in your observation, what has the symphony league and its historical antecedents contributed to the viability of the symphony?
Walsh:
I think it’s all of the pinch-hitting. That’s filling in an emergency, manning the phones, ferrying people back and forth, conducting the car raffle and other major fundraisers to, you know, get the money in. I think that’s. . .it’s the coordination of the volunteer effort. Now that, in and of itself, is changing, and that’s one of the things that I particularly saw and, while I may have planted seeds, it was not something that really sprouted and blossomed during my tenure. And that is the recognition that the symphony- -the Virginia Symphony is now truly a regional orchestra with important audience constituencies from Williamsburg to the Eastern Shore, down into North Carolina, and the symphony league has had trouble… finding a definition of itself, or finding what role it’s going to play, long term. There is a Virginia Symphony Society of Greater Williamsburg. Their focus is quite different. They are more a social organization, we’re more the nitty-gritty, get down and work. But then, you know, you have the tunnel to contend with. And why would somebody in Williamsburg want to make that long trip down to volunteer, to help out in the office. Now that the venue of Ferguson Center has opened up, I expect that there will be much more involvement there. There’s a group in the Hampton/Newport News area that’s galvanizing as volunteers. Certainly the Eastern Shore has some eager people. So I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that it’s going to involve change. We have not really effectively addressed change for the last -- well I came onboard when Helen Sonenshine was president, and I know that was a big focal point of her year, and to some extent, Ann Robin, and certainly in Terri Kirchner and I, were trying to get this organization to change and adapt to the
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times. They gave lip service, and they recognized the need to grow membership by attracting younger professionals, with the skills and the interests and the money and the time. And also to broaden out and include more men, but there’s a gap between that desire and coming up with the programs that will effect it. And I’m not sure that, in its present entity, it can do that.
Major: There is a fundraising component to the symphony league. How big a part is that?
Walsh:
Major. I’d have to say, while there are a lot of other volunteer things that we do and a lot of membership activities, the main . . . we see ourselves as advocates and supporters of the Virginia Symphony’s - -Virginia Symphony orchestra and its musicians. So key to that is being ticket holders, to be part of the audience, is to being advocates, inviting our friends and talking-up the good points of the symphony and then to supporting it financially. That financial commitment, talking to people like Connie Ferebee and Winnie Baldwin and others, has always been significant, in their various fundraisers. The car raffle has been going for a donkey’s age but prior to that they had a bunch of other things that had been going on, so all along they’ve been substantially raising money – anywhere from 50 to $80,000.
Major: The women’s committee, I believe, initiated fund raising in the 30’s.
Walsh:
Probably.
Major: What can you tell me about the role of the Symphony Foundation? What does it contribute to the viability?
Walsh:
Well, that’s an interesting tension. I understand that the foundation was established to receive long-term assets and provide for the long-term stability of the symphony and that there was an advantage to creating it as a separate legal entity, because there was a real risk that the symphony could go bankrupt. And they didn’t want the assets to be attached by that bankruptcy. And they also felt that for major gifts, that was an appropriate place to go. But there is, and it has its own separate board. There’s some cross-fertilization of that; you know we have representatives from the big board that serve on the foundation. But in point of fact, it’s a very tight balancing act, between the needs of the symphony and the integrity, not the integrity, but the entity of the foundation. The theory behind it is that the symphony derives the annual income and perhaps a percentage of the assets from the foundation for its annual support, but the symphony has run on a deficit for so long that they owe the foundation quite a large amount of money. So the assets of the foundation have been loaned to the symphony.
Major: Principal, you mean?
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Walsh:
Principal, I mean, and the principal. And it’s through other entities that the loan is managed. But the indebtedness, the debt -- I’ve forgotten what the technical term is, forgive me -- but the load of servicing that debt is quite significant for the symphony, and there is also the long term viability of the need to pay down that debt. So we don’t have that burden. So, there is that tension. When the time came to make significant gifts, one year we had a surplus from our pledge to the symphony of the proceeds of the car raffle, and what we actually realized, and there was a lot of debate among the league, and the decision was made, in good faith, that since we have the means both for annual giving and for the long term stability, we would like to see that extra 3 to $5,000 go into the foundation. And that- -and we’ve had other related issues that have come up. Well, there are all kinds of interesting legal complications because technically the Virginia Symphony League is a committee of the Board of Directors of the Virginia Symphony. So, the money that we make belongs to the symphony already. So we - - there is the question of whether we can give away money of the symphony’s to the foundation. That has not really been resolved, but it is one of the issues that is out there. And then there is also the very real need to make the payroll. And even though we may have fulfilled the pledge, that doesn’t mean that they were able to raise the other money from ticket revenue or others, to keep the orchestra funded. What most people don’t realize is that we make up the budget based on projected ticket sales and revenue. We know our fixed expenses, the huge category of that is personnel. But when you have a hurricane come through and disrupt not just one concert performance but everybody’s attention for the first two months of the program, and it has an effect on fundraising, you know that’s a major devastation. You’ve contracted with the musicians; you’ve contracted for the venues, contracted for the guest artists. So the long-term stability is key to the continued viability of the symphony because you’ve got to pay down the debt; you’ve got to build a surplus; and that’s your contingency fund when you have these natural disasters or any other disruptions.
Major: What do you know about the process that took place before the merger of the several local ensembles to make the Virginia Orchestra Group?
Walsh:
Nothing.
Major: OK.
Walsh:
Sorry.
Major: OK. There’s another investigation that I discovered since we received the first group of the papers. In 1989, there was an investigation of a possible merger with the Richmond Symphony. Do you know anything about that?
Walsh:
Only the fringes of it. No, I hadn’t even thought of it until you raised that. But. . .what I’m remembering of the discussions were negative, that this was not going to be a fit.
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Major: OK. How strong has the symphony been in the last ten years?
Walsh:
Musically, it has been amazingly strong and vibrant, and they’ve achieved success after success. Even the concert by concert basis, the evolution of the artistry of the symphony is just awesome. . . to the point where it is easily, to my ears, and I may not be as trained, the equivalent of orchestras like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where I was growing up, you know? Financially, I would say within the last four or five years, we’re much stronger. But that is, that has been blood, sweat, and tears to get us there and still not an assured thing to maintain it. The administrative process has been very effectively improved. The board has done a lot of board development and streamlining, so I think we’re the most effective that we’ve ever been. But it’s still a very delicate balancing act, to keep the orchestra going.
Major: Other than the factor you just mentioned, are there other contributing factors to the increased strength of the orchestra?
Walsh:
I think it’s the stability of the musicians. I mean, yes, we are sort of a farm team for some of the major orchestras. Because our salaries are so low, you can only attract the younger musicians, and eventually they want to break into the bigger leagues. But, there is such a core of strong, stable, mid-career, late-career, musicians, that that’s one of the definite strengths. John Lindberg says, “We like each other,” and that is so rare in other orchestras. JoAnn Falletta has commented about the sense of community -- the family sense, within the orchestra, with the team, and with the symphony league. And I believe she’s genuine. I don’t think she is ever puffed, flattered, you know, for that reason. From what I’ve seen elsewhere and read about the issues that other symphony leagues have, I would have to say, true, it’s true, that there is a wonderful degree of harmony among these people.
Major: Harmony in more ways than one.
Walsh:
Right.
Major: What additional things do you think need to happen to increase the symphony’s viability?
Walsh:
Well I’m really pleased at the opening of the Ferguson Center . I believe that will be a long term shot in the arm for the financial viability. I don’t think that it’s going to subtract unduly for concert attendance here, but we do have our work cut out for us to build audience involvement. That’s characteristic of all professional orchestras because it’s an aging population that’s going there. We have to get more younger people there. I like the programming direction and the enthusiasm of Carla and her management team. The musicians seem solidly behind it. And I think that that audience development is in its mid-stages, early to
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mid-stages, and that we will be a long-term place with that. We’re getting a lot of good press, a lot of publicity, and I know that is due to the recognition that you needed a public relations person, that’s among my background, and the staff has been spread so thinly that just to make deadlines and lurch from crisis to crisis, that important promotional aspect has had to fall by the wayside. And now that they have one, and a very good Director of Public Relations in Donna Hudgins, I think we’re seeing the fruit of that.
Major: Are there other issues that you would like to bring out as part of this conversation?
Walsh:
Well, I know all of our constituencies are most hopeful of keeping JoAnn here as long as we can. She’s very talented. I think it’s says a lot about the, either the glass ceiling, or the tightness of the orchestral conducting world, that they have not recognized her merits for places like the Chicago Symphony or the New York Philharmonic or any of the others. But that’s our gain. And she seems very happy and contented with us. So I think that’s one of the, the long term issues, that you have to have music directors that people can rally around, who have not just the ability to get, coax notes out of the musicians and hopefully keep them reasonably together. Not just in beat, but also as an ensemble and people who are cordial and congenial. But also people who can articulate vision, which JoAnn is extremely effective at. So I think her continued involvement, should she, or when she leaves, I hope it’s a long time away, we will be faced with the need to find another music director of her caliber. . .and personality and charisma. And that’s one. I do think that the nature of volunteerism is changing for all not-for-profits. Certainly we see it happening in the symphony league. And I remain concerned about how that can be effected, but it’s no longer my problem. And that’s a major relief.
Major: What else?
Walsh:
I think that’s as much as I can give you on that topic.
Major: This has been very helpful. Thank you very much.
END OF INTERVIEW
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