This interview was conducted at Mr. Ware's law office in Norfolk on April 21, 2006 with Dr. Jean Major, University Librarian Emeritus and Virginia Symphony League Archivist.

Guil Ware

Interview with Guil Ware

April 21, 2006
Norfolk, Virginia

Interviewer: Dr. Jean Major

Listen to interview

Major: How did your involvement with the symphony begin?

Ware: Well, you know, I don’t remember the year, unfortunately. I remember a group of businessmen came over and asked me, ‘cause I was interested in the symphony and attended the concerts, and asked me if I would go on the board. And Mr. Schenkman was the director. And I told them that I didn’t think I should be on the board of the symphony. I wasn’t particularly a musician. But then they came back to see me a couple of times, and I said, well, I will go on for a while, but I don’t know what I can do, but anyway, when I went to the first few meetings, I was trying to determine what was going on, and it was during the years in which Mr. Schenkman was apparently beginning or had started directing part-time for the Richmond Symphony, and if I recall correctly, there was sort of one part of the board were very much very pro-Schenkman, and one part weren’t necessarily enamored with him, I gathered. So I didn’t know anything about the history of that, so I just wrote it as I seen it. I thought if Mr. Schenkman wanted to go to Richmond , then we should persuade him to go to Richmond . I didn’t think we should keep someone in Norfolk . So eventually he did; he went to Richmond .

Major: Went to Richmond full-time.

Ware: Full-time. And seem to me, for a short period of time he conducted Richmond , Norfolk and Richmond , but he was primarily Norfolk to begin with.

Major: That’s right.

Ware: And I’ll have to say this; this is purely my impression from my experience. See, I am not from Norfolk . I am originally from up in Essex County ; I guess you know where that is.

Major: I don’t, ‘cause I am not from Virginia .

Ware: See, I am from up in that area near Tappahannock on the Rappahannock River

Major: Oh yes, yes.

Ware: Well, it was my understanding, my experience, that the arts and cultural groups in Norfolk were really saved and nurtured by the women of the

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community, and I am not saying this to be -- And so, as I served on the board of the symphony, and I don’t remember what positions I held, but I assume that I held various positions, I found that the symphony, being more interested in that than the other cultural activities. They didn’t have a central office. And that the records were in women’s homes, in the closet and under the bed, and it was remarkable that it was administered as well as it was. These women would get together, and I don’t know that they called it the Women’s Auxiliary at the time.

Major: There was a time when that was its name: Women’s Committee, and then Women’s Auxiliary, and then Symphony League.

Ware: Well, it was just -- it was at first maybe it was, I think it was the Women’s Auxiliary, and they would meet, and I thought that it should be some central office. I wish I could remember the women’s names. Winnie Maddock was, Winnie Baldwin now, she was very dedicated, and I really enjoyed her. There was a Mrs. Ferebee, I believe. 

Major: Grace Ferebee.

Ware: Grace Ferebee, yes. And there was Mrs… there were a number of them. I can’t remember all their names. And I either recommended or got together and I said, we should have these records placed in one office, and it seemed to me I asked a gentleman who was somebody’s husband who was retired and living on Social Security. I don’t know. We were able to get an office in the old telephone building, I think it was, one of the buildings downtown. I wish I could remember the names. So I asked these women to bring these records in, so we could have them all in one place. I wish I could…

Major: And they did?

Ware: As I recall, they did. They got them from out of their closets and from out under their beds and so on. And that man pulled them together. So we didn’t have a paid person to take care of the business function.

Major: No, for quite a long time.

Ware: For quite some time. And, of course, the symphony was operated on a very modest budget, to say the least.

Major: A few thousand.

Ware: A few thousand, well, I can’t remember. We finally worked the budget up to well up to over a $100,000; I don’t remember the figures; it took quite some time.

Major: Yes.

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Ware: There for a while, we didn’t have any real business procedures that were formal. And I guess it was when I became president (I don’t remember when that was).

Major: Was that in the Schenkman period or the Russell Stanger period?

Ware: I think I was president when Stanger came.

Major: That was 1966.

Ware: ’66. Well, this is sort of an aside, but I remember the women became real upset with me because I insisted on balancing the budget. And it seemed to me that for a year or two there before I became president, they ran a little deficit. It would be considered DeMinimus now. So I can remember they would come to me with a --; I insisted on having contracts. Like, for instance, they wanted to have the symphony orchestra play at Portsmouth ; I can’t remember, maybe it was Willett Theatre or something. They’d bring me a contract and want me to sign it; I wouldn’t sign it until we had a check. They would get upset with me and say, well they are good for it, and I’d say that is fine; just have them write me a check, and I will sign the agreement. I’ll just keep it here on my desk until the check comes in. Then when Russell came, he and I got to be pretty good friends, but I would go to rehearsals at times, and I would count the musicians on the stage, and I would tell Russell, “You know, you have got too many; we can’t afford,” so I knew how many we could afford. So when I went to a concert, I was noticing things, and I don’t know why, but I’d always count the musicians. But we always, I insisted we balance the budget. In another words, we didn’t spend the money for this year’s concert if it was money for the next year. So we always -- and somewhere along the line I became – in the course of working for them, I had to do all the legal work for free. I didn’t feel right charging them; I had to make a contribution to them and do the work free. So consequently I was negotiating all the -- Larry became … Well, when I became president, I think they had an agreement with the union, the musicians’ union. So I negotiated that; I believe it was every year. After a while we got one, I think it was for three years. Two years, three years. Of course I didn’t charge the symphony, and I became the registered agent. I don’t know whether I prepared the corporate charter for them or not; I may have or I may not have as a tax-free organization. So I would file the annual reports.

Major: To the Corporation Commission.

Ware: State Corporation Commission. And I was a big advocate, and I have prepared foundations for various organizations. I advocated that, but not many people wanted to do that.

Major: Establish a foundation.

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Ware: And I can’t remember, and then later he was president of the bank here.

Major: Jim Babcock.

Ware: What was it?

Major: Was it Jim Babcock?

Ware: Jim Babcock and some of the other men agreed with that, and so I prepared a foundation, and I don’t remember which year it was.

Major: I don’t remember exactly, but I have that in my records somewhere.

Ware: But it would be in the records of the symphony or something.

Major: Jim Babcock, I think, only came into this picture in the ‘80s.

Ware: Yeah, he came later.

Major: Yeah.

Ware: But he, I wish I could remember some of the -- it was a retired pilot from United Airlines, if my memory is right, was very helpful. Hodgson, Bill Ames, some of the others. I am getting a little ahead of myself; let me see. During this time, when I say this time, in the 70’s, I guess, there was the Virginia Beach Symphony, the Peninsula Symphony, and the Norfolk Symphony. Well, I was very concerned because they were not only those three primary symphonies, but there were various musical groups and choral groups, and I told them very frankly that if they were going to have any organization of excellence, a prime organization, that they were dissipating the funds with all these splinter groups. And that I didn’t see any reason why we shouldn’t have one very fine orchestra. And have the funds from all these groups concentrated with one group. So as I recall, Jim Babcock and some of the others felt the same way. I don’t remember all the men involved; of course, women were, too. And, finally we were able to get -- Walter Noona was the director at Virginia Beach , and McMurran, what was his first name, on the Peninsula .

Major: Yeah, I know who you mean.

Ware: He was a very fine man. Very nice.

Major: Cary, Cary , was that his name? Or something like that.

Ware: Gary ?

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Major: Cary or …that does not sound quite right, but I…

Ware: It was something McMurran.

Major: But it’s close.

Ware: I don’t mean this in a derogatory term, but his orchestra was not up to the standard of this one that Russell had gotten, so we were somewhat amusing. We had to find a lot of amusement in the thing, and I used to laugh at some of the meetings, things that would occur. But to encourage the orchestra groups to get together, we agreed that we would have three directors. I don’t know whether you remember that or not. Walter Noona, McMurran, and Russell Stanger. Well, see, right after the merger, well what I did; I merged them into what you call the -- as a matter of fact, I found the articles of planning the agreement of the merger into the Virginia Orchestra Group. And for some time I was concerned, and it may be after Schenkman went to Richmond that northern Virginia or Richmond would get the name Virginia Symphony. So I reserved it myself and paid the fee for a number of years to reserve the name, so no one would capture it. I couldn’t get anybody to agree to call this the Virginia Symphony. So what I did, I organized the Virginia Orchestra Group with the three directors, and I immediately organized the Virginia Symphony, and we traded it, the Virginia Orchestra Group trading as the Virginia Symphony. And we still have that, I believe. So that’s where we got the Virginia Symphony.

Major: I had wondered about that.

Ware: Well, I was very concerned that the group of the National Symphony in Rich -- in Washington , you know; they lived in northern Virginia and Richmond , you know. They’d feel they were first, and so I would want to preserve the name. I don’t know how many years I …every six months, I had to send them a check and renew the request. But I will tell you an amusing event you don’t have … . They wanted to have an audition program; that was when they were merging the three orchestras, so they had these musicians to determine who would be selected for the orchestra.

Major: This was among the musicians who were participating in the three groups?

Ware: Yeah, and I can’t remember all the details, but I can’t remember where it was. But they said the three directors would be the auditioning group, and to keep them from being biased, they would set up some seats where they couldn’t see the musician. Have you ever heard this story?

Major: No. But I know that that is the way it usually, these auditions take place; they are blind auditions.

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Ware: This was a blind audition. Well, they had the three directors there,… and it worked out pretty well except for one woman. I can’t remember her name, and I think she was the first chair, first or second chair. And she was not selected, and it was quite a to-do, and to make a long story short, she brought suit, had a lawyer bring suit, if my memory is right, against, a million dollars against each one of the directors and the symphony. Well, you know, it ended up on my desk to defend, which I did free of charge. And when it hit my desk, you have never seen three directors so upset in your life. They were just practically speechless; it was the worst thing that had ever happened to them. And they just were beside themselves. What on earth; I don’t have any million dollars _____. My gosh, ____, I think that suit precipitated the fact that we ended up with one director. Don’t tell anybody I said that. But I thought it was sort of amusing, but I didn’t want it to hit the media, the press, so I tried to keep it as quiet as I could. And I thought, well, you know, I’ve got to do something to keep this thing from going to trial. And so I filed a technical plea against it, and the attorney for this lady had not been real astute; I was able to get the judge to dismiss it, summarily dismiss it, which was fortunate. You’ve never seen three directors so relieved in all your life. But anyway that was beside the point. That was one of the few things that came up.

Major: What do you think made that a successful merger, finally?

Ware: Well, I think it helped raise the level of performance up a notch, and you know any… anything we did that would raise the performance level always helped. Now, of course, we had difficulties as we went; it wasn’t easy. Every year a cultural and art group has difficulty financially. And I’m not -- don’t take what I say as being derogatory -- but it’s been my experience that the arts and cultural group are not always business oriented. And they don’t always know, you know from a business standpoint, and their desire always exceeds the resources. Well, there is nothing wrong with that as long as you keep them balanced. But I was very fortunate in working with the musicians because I tried to be very open and practical, and, of course, every time we’d have negotiations, they wanted more money, and they wanted more assurance and more security. And I told them very frankly, you know you are very fortunate because in this community there are just so many resources to go around between the museum and like, you know the various…. And you’ve got some of the best people in this community on your board that are out raising money for you without any pay. And if you know how to get more money in here and the money is for the musicians and to promote the orchestra. And I said, I don’t know of any other organization that has all these professional people out trying to raise money for them. And if you raise the money, you will get the money, and we will pay you as much as we can. And so … I said if we had the money you would be paid, but we are not going to pay you if we do not have it. I said, it’s just that simple. And I can remember -- and I think in your chronology --. And I may be wrong, but as I recall, one year they said they weren’t going to play unless they got a certain amount of money. And so I cancelled two rehearsals, I think, or three rehearsals

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before the first concert, and I knew the musicians pretty well -- and so I remember -- I think we had gone over to Chrysler Hall by that time, or maybe we were still in Center Theatre, but we met on Friday afternoon, I think. I cancelled several rehearsals, and I remember one of them said, “Now Guil, you wouldn’t cancel the first concert, would you? That’s …” So I smiled at him; I said, “Well, I tell you what you do; you just test me,” and by Monday morning we had an agreement. But you see, I got to know the union president at the time who was a good friend in a way, and we’d go through the negotiations, and then we would talk to each other, and I would say, listen, the budget for next year is ‘X’ dollars, and we will pay them ‘Y,’ and that’s the best we can do. So if we could, we would make an agreement, so we did. But I was very conscious of the finances, maybe too much so, but I felt, and I guess the same is true now; it would be nice to have the funds to pay them in quotes “what they are worth.” And I can remember, it was someone on the faculty at Old Dominion University who was the first chair, and he wanted a certain amount of money one year, and he came in to talk to me about it, and I said, you know, this is all we have. And I said we’d love to have you play, and he says I’m not going to play, and I said we fully understand, and I appreciate your position. And he set out of here, but the next year he came back. But somewhere along the line, -- well, when I negotiated -- we had a two page agreement, and I was very, maybe too much so, conscious of my surrendering the prerogatives of management to the union, so I wouldn’t negotiate any of the management prerogatives, and we had this short agreement, but then they decided they were going to get a paid manager; I don’t remember his name.

Major: No

Ware: But by that time I wasn’t an officer; I had served my term, if my memory is right. So I just told them I couldn’t spend a lot of time. I was trying to practice law and make a living, you know, and raise a family. But in any event, I don’t remember his name. But then they had great ambitions. Somewhere in that term, Russell resigned as the Director, as I recall, and we had Vogel, what was his name?

Major: After Russell Stanger was Richard Williams in 1980.

Ware: He didn’t stay long, as I recall.

Major: Neither; he didn’t stay long, and Winston Dan Vogel didn’t stay long.

Ware: Winston Dan Vogel; neither one of them stayed long.

Major: Four years each.

Ware: Was it that long?

Major: Yeah, I would be eager to hear how come they were such short timers.

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Ware: Well, you know, I, if I was on the board it was as a past president, and I wasn’t real active with them because, in the meantime, as I recall, they were having paid managers.

Major: Uh huh, by then they seemed to be.

Ware: Well, one manager they had, and I may have recommended him, was Matt Werth, Matthew Fontaine Werth. He was a very good manager, and he sort of had my philosophy, I think. I don’t know whether he was retained for a while or not, do you know?

Major: I don’t remember.

Ware: But in any event, they started running a deficit. They were very ambitious, of course. I kept a very -- I wasn’t very popular in those days because I kept telling them that they -- Well, I tell you what they were doing; I told them I thought it was very dangerous. They would have a deficit; they went from July 1 to June 30, if my memory is correct, the fiscal year. Well, we would have a campaign in the spring and late winter for the next concert series, but lo and behold, they were taking that money from those sales, presales, to pay the organizational expenses for the year in which they were then. And I said that they were paying next year’s money. So they were coming up short. So what they did, they started borrowing money from the bank, and they would come to me to prepare the documents. Let’s see, first of all they started, I believe, a line of credit, seemed to me it was with the predecessor of this bank, Sovereign Bank. And I think Sovereign got concerned about the fact that instead of paying it off by the end of the year, it ended up with an increase in debt, so I think another financial institution -- I handled that for them as well as their annual reports. I attended very few meetings other than they would consult me at times with problems. And then they came to me for …this group --they agreed to a foundation. Well, I prepared the documents and had it approved by the Internal Revenue. The foundation is called the Virginia Symphony Foundation; I don’t remember the year; I should have it.

Major: I have it some place in my notes

Ware: But the documents and all, I turned over to the symphony.

Major: Sure. What, how much did the foundation contribute to the symphony’s viability?

Ware: Well, as I told them, and I promoted it, and I still believe, the foundation is not to be, to support an organization. As I have always said, a foundation is to give you the extra money for what I call the edge of excellence, that little bit of -- the budget should take care itself. But if you want to have a special program, artists, a guest artist, then that would may be some extra funds for it. Well,

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unfortunately, it never occurred to me and -- another thing is, every organization that I have been involved with, there have been right many that I have prepared a foundation. I have warned them to not consider the foundation and to keep it separate from the operating group. Well, conceptually, I don’t think it ever … they didn’t consider it a separate thing. But now the original contributors -- and I contributed to it -- felt that they were making a capital contribution to the foundation. Well, that’s what they wanted to do; otherwise they would have made it to the operating budget. Well, for some unknown reason, I shouldn’t say unknown, but there is a group of them that considered if there was money in the foundation, it was the funds of the orchestra, and the musicians, I think, thought so, too. Now the foundations I have prepared recently, I have made it any organization that doesn’t show me independent of and have separate ordinance. Well, I was asked to remain on the board of the foundation at the orchestra. I declined to be president of the board, but I was secretary, I believe, and I represented it, but along the way they -- the rules of auditing begin to change, and the auditor interpreted the rule I don’t think they had to. So that when they issued the financial statement for the Virginia Symphony, they put the amount of the foundation right in the … and the board and I just disagreed, and I said that is a bad mistake. And I said, anybody that looks at your financial statement will think that you are financially in one position, which you are not. Well, they liked that. Well, I warned them that would lead to -- In any event, instead of them taking care of their financial affairs, they became more and more indebted. And some of these managers they got, just kept leading them down that primrose path. And of course, they didn’t ask me and at one time they didn’t ask me to take care of the negotiations with the union. Of course, that was fine with me ‘cause I had plenty of other things to do, and I remember one year, and I couldn’t believe it, they hired a professional to negotiate. It ended up in a strike and paid him $25,000 more in fees, which they didn’t have, to negotiate. That’s fine with me if that’s what they wanted. I didn’t, but in any event I just didn’t have time to keep, you know -- If that’s the way they want to run it, it’s fine with me. I enjoyed the symphony. Then they got their debt structure up to, well it was way up … well I could see it coming some years, and I said, if you keep this up, you are not going to be able to maintain the symphony orchestra in Norfolk . And I can’t remember the sequence, but they went through a number of different people.

Major: A number of different managers or a number of different conductors?

Ware: Well, the whole organization. They had --If you look back, they had various positions, and there was such great turnover, no one seemed to know what was going. In the meantime, if you looked at the operating agreement with the union, many of the management prerogatives, down to what they were going to wear at the concert, is set forth in that agreement.

Major: Uh huh

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Ware: I mean, you know, management prerogatives and so on are in the union agreement. I don’t mean this derogatory. If that’s the way they wanted it, that’s fine. But I don’t know what, but they ran up a sizable ____. So the first time they came to me with the documents to prepare for financing, they wanted the foundation to bail them out.

Major: With the principal.

Ware: Oh, yeah! And I said, that can’t be done. And so they didn’t like that very much. And I said, the question is whether you want to continue to have a foundation. If you don’t want a foundation or, you know, that’s your prerogative. So no, they wanted a foundation. I said, well, you have these conservatives that came in. To use the funds of the foundation as security for this outstanding loan that you have with this financial institution, you should get the approval of the major contributors. So, fortunately they were able to get the major contributors to agree, and I agreed. So, they pretty much used the foundation money to secure the lines of credit. Of course, that diminished the effectiveness of the foundation. And I think that is still today; I have not kept up. Well, in the meantime, by virtue of this turnover – I’m not going to mention the name, one of the major contributors -- They pulled a real faux pas, and he found out that they had this debt and all, and he completely cut them off. And I, they came to me, and I said, well, you know, I’ve known him for a long time but I said, one thing he will not tolerate is the using of funds contrary to what you represent. And your management of the funds -- and I had said this, and I’ll bet they’re eating it (ph). I said I can tell you something. When -- it was a meeting right here in this office, maybe in the other conference room. I said, you know, you can run a deficit, and I said if you don’t run this symphony as a business, the primary business people in this community, they may not say anything, but they are not going to contribute the money. Once they know that you’re not, and that’s generally what happened. And particularly with this woman particularly. And when they told me, I said, you know I am not surprised at all. I said, why would somebody that works hard for their money just contribute it somewhere that’s not business, that has no business responsibility? I say you are working against yourself, but that was too simple, I guess. But I have not helped you much, have I?

Major: Oh, you have helped tremendously. I have other questions.

Ware: Oh, sure.

Major: You talked about a goal about -- when you came onto the board, women did a great deal of the work, and that was before there was a paid staff and so on. Over time, what have you seen about the role that the women’s organization and the individual committed women did for the symphony?

Ware: Oh, the women were very loyal to the symphony. I don’t think the symphony would be here without the women. I mean, I just think, I don’t think the

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museum would be here as it is now if it hadn’t been for the women. Now I disagree with some of their -- They kept asking me when Chrysler came what I thought. I wouldn’t tell them, and finally I did. They brought suit. Parker -- and they kept coming asking me what I thought, and I said I am going to tell you one thing; you are very fortunate that Chrysler will come here. And they said, well what about his collection? You know, it’s a lot of discussion, and I said that’s one of the best things about it. Look at all the publicity you are getting without charge. I said, what I didn’t (ph)--People have different taste. I said, just think all over the world, I said, you shouldn’t be contesting; you should be asking for more. And they missed the boat there on some of it that he would have given. And I said you are fortunate that the Chrysler has given you all this free publicity about the Chrysler collection. I said I am not that much of an art expert, but I said there is going to be some conflict in any art collection. And I said, why will you want to take Chrysler through all of this? Why not just accept everything he’s got, and let the other go, but they wouldn’t. Some of them were very upset that they were going to change the name to the Chrysler Museum .

Major: Oh gee.

Ware: Well, you look at the media back in those days. Mr. Parker was an attorney, and they brought suit, but the women saved the cultural and art in this community, so far as I am concerned. They deserve all the credit in the world because they worked hard. And it wasn’t until they got these paid managers in here, the paid staff; they did all the work before that.

Major: Some of them made their symphony work their careers. They did it virtually full time.

Ware: Oh, they were just, they were dedicated. They attended every concert, and they brought -- we had a, you know, we’d have guest artists, and we would rotate in entertaining. I had them at my home several times, and we’d invite the board members and some of the civic leaders, and we had a nice time. We had a good time, and I tell you some of these guest artists were tremendous for Norfolk . You would be amazed what they did for us.

Major: There were some very big names.

Ware: Oh, yeah, let me try to think of some of them. Who was the pianist, course I like …Leonard Pennario. .

Major: Didn’t he play for the inaugural concert at the Chrysler?

Ware: Let me think now, was it Leonard? I wish I could remember these names. I think he was in my home. Was he one that was in World War II?

Major: That I don’t know.

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Ware: Or was that another pianist? But I mean, he would, he appeared without charging at a concert once. I think it was Leonard; I’d have to ask Russell. I get these artists sort of confused, but we had a nice time. They would be very gracious. We would meet them at the airport and bring them into the room and entertain them at dinner that night and during the course of the time they were here. I remember being at home... See, we had the concerts on Sunday and Monday, Tuesday. We had this guest pianist who was supposed to appear and about ten o’clock or eleven o’clock Thursday or Friday night, I got a call. I thought it was friend of mine, said I am sorry that Mr. so and so will be unable to be the guest artist with the Norfolk Symphony or the Virginia Symphony on Sunday; he has injured his hand. I said yeah, I thought they were pulling my leg. I said, yeah, is that right? Who is this calling? I didn’t recognize the name, you know. I thought it was a friend of mine who was pulling my leg, so the next morning I called the agent in New York . Sure enough, what was his name; he had injured his hand somewhere. I thought, oh my goodness, what am I supposed to do? [Laughter] My god, they got this, I should think of his name, big fellow. He was on vacation up in Connecticut or somewhere. By god, he came down. I met him at the airport on Saturday, I guess it was, had rehearsal that night. He was great, and I said, well, I said, it is mighty nice of you to come down and take care, and he said I am glad to do it. Boy, he took over that piano and I mean --so I stayed and took him back to the hotel after the rehearsal that night, and I said, boy, I didn’t know you -- and he said anybody who can’t play that piece -- he did it without any music -- he says they don’t know how to play the piano. I am telling you, the next day that concert, boy he was -- and Russell will remember to this day because he got into Rachmaninoff -- he got him to –the pianist got Russell to change a little. I think Russell will remember to this day.

Major: I bet. Because Russell does remember those stories.

Ware: Oh, he remembers the details that I have forgotten.

Major: Yes he does. Can you characterize the Edgar Schenkman period a little bit for us.

Ware: Well, I think Edgar was, of course, a musician, and I think he was very interested, but I think he was -- and in those days there wasn’t a lot of money, and I think he was very concerned. And I don’t know whether someone had sort of alienated him or not, but there was little bit of a dichotomy of pro-Edgar Schenkman and some did not like him. I didn’t know exactly why because I wasn’t involved at that time, but I don’t think Edgar left Norfolk with a good warm feeling.

Major: That’s my sense.

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Ware: I just, I thought that it was unfortunate that he left Norfolk and went to Richmond with the feeling, and ‘cause he -- I think he really tried for Norfolk , and I don’t know what had happened because I wasn’t on the board at the time. And I wasn’t paying that much attention. I mean I would go to the concerts. I didn’t have any idea about -- but I, my impression was that he left without a good feeling to Norfolk .

Major: That’s the impression I have from research I have tried to do about him during the Norfolk period, too.

Ware: And I never, I always felt that we probably didn’t treat him real well. For some reason, and I can’t tell you why.

Major: Can you characterize the Russell Stanger period?

Ware: Well I think that Russell really brought sort of a fresh approach to the music of the symphony. He was very flexible; people seemed to like him. He had a nice personality, but he was genuinely interested in bringing to Norfolk a professional orchestra. And I think there was a turning event, I believe, for an orchestra because you have to realize what he had when he first came here. And it was through Russell’s influence in New York that we were able to get the guest artists that we got. We got some of the best. And I think he breathed a lot of vitality and life into the orchestra, and he had a flexible personality, and he had a good sense of humor, and you could give him a hard time, and he would take it. No, I think he did a lot for the symphony.

Major: For a long period, I gather from reading the records, the local leadership, the symphony leadership believed that whoever was the director of the symphony, the conductor of the symphony, should live here and make this their primary residence and so on. Do you know how that perspective developed, and the follow-up is, how did things change to permit them to go after JoAnn Falletta whose primary…

Ware: Well, I agreed with the -- Of course, when Russell came we wanted him to be a part of the community, and I think it was a feeling at that day in time that the director should be a part of the community, so he would know the community, live here, and know the people. And in that way they would engender support and know the background of the people and support and be a part of the community. Now when JoAnn Falletta came here, I wasn’t involved in the day-to-day decision so I don’t know what went into that consideration. But when Russell came here, as I recall, we wanted him to be a member of the community and live here, which he did. And I think that was good at the time… because I remember I was a member of a men’s organization, a luncheon organization, and I was asked to be in charge of a program, so I got Russell. I thought that would be an opportunity to show all these men who never went to the symphony, and I tell you he did a tremendous job. We went in there for lunch, and he made sure I had a piano there for them, and I introduced him and he took over. And he said to

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them, he said -- He went down to the piano, and we had a microphone. He said, now if so and so would be playing this piece of music, Rachmaninoff would play like this, and then he would play for a while, and he gets some contemporary person, you know, and they would play like this, and he jams it up, you know, and he had those men in the palm of his hands. I mean he put on a program there those men just thought was great. He says some of you don’t like it because so and so would play it like this, said I don’t particularly like this either, but some would jazz it up. He was great, but I think that’s one good thing about having the conductor part of the community. I just use that as an illustration.

Major: Throughout the early time, particularly, there was a lot of discussion about how difficult it was to recruit musicians, professional quality musicians, because this was not a full time orchestra position. I can remember reading about various ideas that Russell Stanger particularly came up with to construct enough different work so that they would become full time positions. One of the things that happened, I suppose in the ‘70’s or ‘80’s, was that the symphony worked with Norfolk State, and there was a few faculty positions that were also, that were held by people that also played in the symphony. Steve Carlson, for example.

Ware: Yeah.

Major: And I wonder what you know about how that arrangement started and how it got going?

Ware: Well, you know, I never -- if well ___ if they were good musicians, I didn’t care where they came from. Or what -- they could be green, yellow, or whatever, and Russell felt the same way. So, if they were at Norfolk State and they were good musicians, we wanted them; we wanted them to play. So we encouraged everybody. They were musicians; if they were musicians, they would – so there wasn’t anything formal about it, that just was the way we felt.

Major: I thought that there were a few situations where there was sort of a joint recruitment to put together a package that would be enough for full time work.

Ware: Well, to give the -- well I guess to say to have the musicians sort of tied to the symphony, and they seemed to want some assurance that they would be able to consider year after year, and after all we were not able to pay them a living wage, so to speak, that all they could do was be musicians. Many of them were faculty members at ODU and Norfolk State , teachers in school, professional people that were -- you know, played. I can’t remember all their names. And they’d had various jobs, but they were musicians. Then as I recall, after Russell came in, we were able to get, I don’t know what it is called, traveling musicians. But some would come in from Washington maybe. 

Major: Right.

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Ware: And we were able, you know, we gradually increased it as we could and as people would subscribe to the concerts, we would increase it. So it was always our goal to pay the musicians as well as we could.

Major: Sure.

Ware: Still is. There wasn’t any reason not to. I mean, I always felt that we ought to pay them more than we were able to pay but certainly pay them what we could. And so, as I recall, we made an agreement one year to pay a minimum, and I can’t remember the details. It seems to me Russell and I got together and considered what type of program to have. You know some type of programs you need so many musicians, the next program you may not need as many. So we worked out sort of a plan so that we could make sure we had sufficient funds to pay these musicians a minimum amount for so many concerts. And it seems to me we guaranteed by virtue of that pre-planning. I can’t remember the amount.

Major: There was a time when their annual was something like a $1,000.

Ware: $1,000 or $1,200 stick in my mind.

Major: Me too. Me too.

Ware: Something around that, but I don’t remember the details.

Major: Let me ask just one or two final questions. In the period of your big involvement with the symphony, what were the high points? What are things that you really regard as high points of your time?

Ware: Well, I would say working with Russell was a lot of fun, and the high points were these guest artists. And I realize that the orchestra is probably better with more professional musicians, and, as I recall, I had something to do with them making the arrangements with the opera so we could use this. I thought it would be terrible -- it seem to me, who is the director of the opera?

Major: Peter Mark.

Ware: Peter Mark wanted to have his own musical group, and I am going by memory, and I thought it would be a mistake not to have, to combine as much resources as we could to have the best musicians in the community as possible. Not to dissipate, and this group had a certain group of musicians, and this group had musicians, and the money would be spread over. So they were able, I think, to use the same musicians, but I think Mark directs them, the nucleus of the same. And in that way they were able to have one agreement with the musicians and guarantee them a better pay, than we would otherwise. We increased the number of performances, too, to get more pay. That meant they had to work more, but we were able to get them more resources.

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Major: Were there some other memorable moments that were not high points, memorable difficulties?

Ware: Oh, well, like any organization there are going to be difficulties. But I would say, it was a very enjoyable experience. So far as I was concerned. I would come back quite often to my office and laugh about some of the things that would happen. Some of these women would box me in very effectively, and I thought that -- but I always encouraged them because we were all trying to do the same thing. I never took them, and I had no reason to get upset ‘cause I have been a professional --. The judge doesn’t always like it, your client don’t like to be here to begin with, and _______ so I live in an atmosphere that, so I think it started with a very good experience, and I liked the fact that we had a nice orchestra. Well, I liked the fact that we had a better one than Richmond and northern Virginia . [Laughter.] But I thought that we were working and striving toward what I call an orchestra of excellence. And that was very satisfying to me that this community would support an orchestra. And a few things that I have not liked to see since then because I thought there was mutual agreement. Like I think there is a musical group in Virginia Beach now starting up calling themselves the Virginia Beach Orchestra. Well, that is fine, but if you have got people supporting that, they are not going to support this. I think when I was president, I spun off the chorus. It was the Norfolk Symphony and Choral Group. And I didn’t want us to have a secondary both, you know. There just wasn’t enough money. And there were all these choral groups around. And matter of fact, I think I may have been responsible for dropping the name. I said, we are concentrating on the orchestra here. We can’t spend the money; everybody had a different idea on how to spend the money, I said you have to concentrate your money, your funds. There is only so much in the community and if you are going to have one good organization, you’ve gotta not dissipate your funds. We would like to, that is a fine idea, but you can’t have a -- they couldn’t support a good orchestra on the Peninsula, and they couldn’t support one in Virginia Beach . And the thing that has always bothered me is that -- and I think that we are too parochial. Ninety-seven or so percent of people don’t know when they are driving through Virginia Beach , or Chesapeake , or Norfolk or Suffolk . And what difference does it make? The fact that the symphony, any organization that has an office in Norfolk as opposed to Virginia Beach, and as long as it is good for the area, I don’t quite understand it.

Major: Is there anything that you thought or hoped we might ask about that you would like to mention? 

Ware: No I am just disappointed that my memory is not a little better, but the details are -- you know, I just sort of, once it passes, I just…

Major: Right. Well, this has just been fantastic. It has been so useful and so interesting, I thank you very much.

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END OF INTERVIEW

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