AURORA | When it comes to attracting an audience, every orchestra director faces a common challenge.
Sure, getting people in the seats for a classical music concert can depend a lot on a specific organization and a specific community. Funding, programming and personnel can all have an effect on attendance, as can the frequency of shows. Still, a big hurdle for organizations like the Aurora Symphony Orchestra remains rooted in the nature of the music itself.
“(It’s) music written by old dead white guys written for almost-dead white guys,” said ASO President and Executive Director Rich Duston, speaking to the compositions by 17th- and 18th-century composers that serve as standard season selections for most orchestras. The key to finding new crowds lies in performing different kinds of works, Duston added, music by more modern composers that speaks to younger generations. “We’re going to rely heavily on whoever the next music director is to help lead that way, musically speaking.”
Finding that new music director is a work in progress, a process that started more than a year ago and is set to last until 2013. Last year, longtime ASO conductor and music director Richard Niezen announced his departure, and officials kicked off a national search for a replacement. ASO officials narrowed down the first group of applicants to five contenders earlier this year, and each of those five will have a chance to lead the 40-member orchestra by the end of the season.
“This is the second year of the search. We started when Richard Niezen said he was leaving. He said he’d stay for that season to give us time to get organized,” said Dwight Taylor, the chair of the ASO board of directors. “Each of the candidates for the position will rehearse, prepare the orchestra and conduct two concerts for their audition, essentially.”
It’s a standard approach in the world of classical music, a careful audition process that ASO officials hope will usher in a new era of development for the group that started in 1979 as the 15-member Aurora Civic Orchestra.
“We’re trying to kickstart a big growth process for the orchestra,” Duston said. “As many different perspectives as you can get on things like fundraising and sponsorship, the better off you are.”
This season’s concerts will take place at different venues around the city. In addition to shows in the familiar setting of Gateway High School, the orchestra will perform each concert in the auditorium of Vista PEAK, Aurora Public School’s newest campus that opened last year.
“I think without question, Vista PEAK is the best performing facility in Aurora,” Duston said. “It is absolutely gorgeous, it sounds beautiful. It’s a big lovely stage that’s just right for us.”
The public audition process for a new ASO music director started with the orchestra’s first concert of the 2012-13 season in October, a “Fall Masterworks” show that featured compositions by Giuseppe Verdi, Ernest Chausson and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Bae, a native of Korea and a doctorate student at the University of Utah, has served as the assistant conductor for the Salt Lake Symphony and the Utah Philharmonia.
Denver resident and Eastman School of Music graduate Geoffrey Pope is currently working with the orchestra in advance of the holiday concert in December, a show that will include selections by Alexander Borodin and Engelbert Humperdinck. The show will feature a concerto by Pablo Sarasate based on themes from Bizet’s opera “Carmen” performed by violinist Elizabeth Dickenson, who also happens to be Pope’s fiancée. Pope will also lead an original composition during the show, a piece titled “Radium and Sky” dedicated to the victims of the July 20 shootings. Arturo Gonzalez, Devin Hughes and Norman Gamboa will each have turns conducting the orchestra before the season ends in May.
“Everybody brings something different. No two conductors are alike at all. They really have the ability to change what the orchestra sounds like, beyond the music that they’ve chosen. An orchestra really takes on the personality of its conductor,” Duston said. “John Jong-hun Bae was a little bit more extroverted. With Geoffrey Pope, we see a real introverted, thoughtful conductor, not only with the music that he’s chosen, but how we’re rehearsing it.
“It’s honestly a very fun challenge,” Duston added.
The final decision will be up to the symphony’s board of directors, a group that includes a wide range of community leaders. Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates, Aurora Fire Chief Michael Garcia, Aurora City Councilwoman Debbie Hunter-Holen and Deputy Aurora City Manager Michelle Wolfe all serve on the board. It’s a feature of the ASO that quickly stood out to Geoffrey Pope when he reported for guest conductor duty earlier this fall.
“Meeting with the executive board, it was apparent how many people from different walks of life are so supportive of the arts in Aurora. That’s not something that I would have imagined in most cities,” said Pope, who moved to Colorado earlier this year. “When I interviewed and when I auditioned … It was very clear to me what a tight-knit community of really good people the ASO is.”
That initial impression helped guide the composition process for “Radium and Sky.” The tragedy at the Century Aurora 16 theater unfolded shortly after Pope arrived in Colorado, and the original music served as an offering to a newfound community.
“An orchestra can provide solace to the community, not just people who are directly affected,” Pope said. “They can bring a sense of unity and a sense of possibility, when you’re working on something that takes such an amount of dedication and precision. It can only go to inspire people. I think the ASO is doing that.”
ASO Holiday Masterworks – “Making Spirits Bright”
7:30 p.m., Dec. 15, Vista PEAK, 24500 E 6th Ave.
2:30 p.m., Dec. 16, Gateway High School, 1300 South Sable Blvd.
Tickets start at $15. Information: aurorasymphony.org
Geoffrey Pope, Music Director
Program includes:
Pope: “Radium and Sky”
Borodin: “Polovetsian Dances”
Palestrina/Stokowski: “Adoramus Te”
Humperdinck: “Dream Pantomime”
Bizet/Sarasate: “Carmen Fantasy” (Elizabeth Dickenson, violin)
Anderson: “Sleigh Ride”
The ASO 2013 schedule at a glance:
Feb. 9 to 10 (Children’s/Pops)
Arturo Gonzalez, Music Director
Pictures at an Exhibition (w/ El Sistema Colorado)
Ennio Morrione Suite
March 22 to 24 (Spring Masterworks)
Devin Hughes, Music Director
Dvořák – Symphony No.5
JS Bach – Partita in no. 2 in D minor
Mahler – Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) (Thomas Fitzpatrick-Kittle, baritone)
May 10 to 12 (Arts For a Better Tomorrow)
Norman Gamboa, Music Director
Barber – First Essay for Orchestra
(junior competition winner TBA)
(senior competition winner TBA)
Grant Still – Symphony No. 1 “Afro-American”
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com or 720-449-9707
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