When music director Joseph Silverstein steps to the podium to open the 1989-90 Utah Symphony season with "The Star-Spangled Banner" Friday in Symphony Hall, he could almost as well be giving the downbeat on the "Anniversary Waltz."
First, because this week marks the 10th anniversary of the opening of Symphony Hall itself, an acoustic and artistic success whose excellence has been acknowledged nationwide. That event the orchestra will be celebrating with complimentary buffet receptions following Friday's and Saturday's concerts, each of which begins at 8 p.m.Then there is the 50th anniversary of the orchestra itself, to be marked by a variety of events next May. Among those will be a gala evening May 11 in Symphony Hall at which the guest list will include an array of prominent Utahns and, as special guest conductor, former British Prime Minister Edward Heath.
"Actually we're calling it a 50th birthday as opposed to an anniversary," explains Utah Symphony executive director Paul R. Chummers. "If you think about it, the orchestra's 50th birthday is May of 1990. The 50th season will then be the following year."
I don't know - from May 1940 to May 1990 sounds like 50 years of concerts to me. Still, a lot is planned in and around the actual anniversary. In addition to the May 11 gala there will also be a concert May 8 in Kingsbury Hall, site of the orchestra's official debut on May 8, 1940. Although that will be under the sponsorship of the University of Utah, with formal plans yet to be announced, word is organizers are contemplating charging 1940s admission prices and inviting people to come in 1940s dress. (Adds Chummers, "If we can find people who attended that first concert, we're looking for them too.")
On May 12, moreover, the orchestra will round out the week with a special youth concert in its other longtime home, the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Silverstein himself will conduct, with specially selected honor students in attendance. "Then the following September," Chummers says, "we would probably have at least one very gala kind of event to kick off that season."
That's OK by me. But frankly, even apart from all these galas, this season offers enough in the way of novelty and variety that no one need be ashamed of it.
That may not be true of the opening program, a standard romantic lineup consisting of Strauss' "Don Juan," Elgar's Introduction and Allegro and the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony - with only one substitution, namely Elgar for Stravinsky, the very program Silverstein had proposed for last year's season opener until it fell victim to a monthlong players' strike.
So why has he changed it? "Well, I have to tell you," Silverstein says, "when I made that program last year I liked it musically very, very much. Then I looked at it again and realized it was a terrible bear of a program for my first oboe player. As you know, `Don Juan' and Tchaikovsky 4 are very large undertakings for the first oboe and I felt the Elgar would provide some relief."
Even within the season itself there have been some changes. Oh, there is still the emphasis on women composers, with works by Ellen Zwilich, Amy Beach, Lili Boulanger, Clara Schumann, Germaine Tailleferre and Joan Tower. Only now Zwilich will be represented not by "Celebration" - which might have been especially appropriate this season - but by her Trombone Concerto, with Christopher Wilkins conducting and Larry Zalkind as soloist. And the other concert Wilkins was to have conducted, March 23/24, will now be taken by Catherine Comet, making a welcome return.
Nor will she be the only woman to lead the orchestra this season, Wilkins' recent appointment as music director of the Colorado Springs Symphony necessitating some additional shuffling. Thus former Utahn Marin Alsop will conduct the Dec. 9 chamber sampler and the U. of U.'s Madeline Shatz will likewise be on hand for Oct. 14's all-Vivaldi concert, each with soloists drawn from the orchestra.
Other guest maestros this season include George Cleve (Oct. 6/7), David Zinman (Oct. 20/21), James Ross (the Jan. 20 chamber program), Christof Perick (March 2/3), Daniel Lewis (March 9/10), Pascal Verrot (the April 7 chamber program), Uri Mayer (April 13/14), film composer Jerry Goldsmith (a Jan. 26/27 concert of movie music) and, most surprisingly, for the Nov. 18 retirement fund benefit, M*A*S*H's David Ogden Stiers.
Still, the bulk of the 18 subscription programs - and a good many others - fall to Silverstein. In addition to the opening chamber concert, an all-Bach program Sept. 23, he will also direct concerts Oct. 27/28 (with violinist Aaron Rosand), Dec. 1/2 (with pianist Virginia Eskin), Jan. 5/6 (with guitarist Sharon Isbin), Jan. 12/13 (with soprano Sivan Rotem), Feb. 2/3 (with pianist Veronica Jochum), Feb. 9/10, Feb. 24 (an evening of chamber opera), March 16/17 (with violinist Zvi Zeitlen), April 20/21 (with pianist Andre Watts), April 27/28 (with concertmaster Ralph Matson) and May 3/5 (with Linda Kelm and Gary Bachlund in Act 2 of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde").
Other soloists slated to appear include cellist Carter Brey (in the Shostakovich First Concerto Oct. 6/7), pianist Andre-Michel Schub (in the Mozart 25th Oct. 20/21), pianist Grant Johannesen (in the Beethoven "Emperor" March 23/24) and, from the orchestra, violinist Gerald Elias (March 2/3), clarinetist Christie Lundquist (March 9/10) and harpist Konrad Nelson (April 13/14).
And that's not taking into account the newly lucrative Merrill Lynch Entertainment Series, now moving to subscription pairs. This season those will feature mezzo Joan Morris and her pianist husband William Bolcom in "An Evening of American Popular Song" (Sept. 29/30), guitarist Chet Atkins (Nov. 10/11), the orchestra's now-annual Christmas concerts (Dec. 15/16), the previously mentioned Jerry Goldsmith concert (Jan. 26/27) and pianist/composer Marvin Hamlisch (May 25/-26). Were that not enough, the orchestra is also offering special concerts with the Chieftains (Dec. 6), Sharon Isbin (Jan. 4), an all-request chamber finale May 19 as well as its traditional "Irish Night," New Year's Eve concert and, on Nov. 17, "Salute to Youth."
On top of which Silverstein is currently laying plans for a four-day Beethoven Festival the end of June, with pianist Garrick Ohlsson as soloist. "It's sort of a new venture for us, a very intense week of working over the music of one composer," Silverstein says, "with hourlong concerts of chamber music preceding the main concerts at 8. It's the kind of thing I think Salt Lake City will respond to very well."
Even in the face of dwindling touring and recording commitments, Silverstein remains optimistic about both the orchestra and its audience. Going into their seventh season together, he claims he is "thoroughly delighted with the orchestra's ability to handle an enormous variety of styles and repertoire, ranging all the way from Marvin Hamlisch to contemporary music and the classical repertoire. In terms of artistic attitude, theirs is second to none."
Ditto its patrons. "Obviously there are certain monetary concerns which we share with all other orchestras," the conductor says with reference to the budget crunch of recent years. "But I feel this community has demonstrated a very serious need for the continuity of an orchestra and its maintenance on the highest artistic level."
Some would say that need has been most profitably met not by the orchestra's regular subscription season, with its emphasis on the classics, but by its ever-expanding schedule of pops concerts. Even Chummers acknowledges that "this past summer was phenomenally successful in terms of going over budget, maybe 30 or 35 percent in excess of what was anticipated." Similarly, he says, the Entertainment Series is meeting with comparable success while the classical series is "holding steady."
"What's plain to me," he says, "is that there is a general trend to buy shorter series, and one novelty this year is that we are making available combinations where you can get, say, three classical and three pops or six classical and six pops. And the same applies to the chamber concerts."
The result is that, although the books have yet to close on 1988-89, the projected deficit for that season looks to be in the neighborhood of $400,000, compared with last year's shortfall of $197,924. Against that, the orchestra's endowment prospects appear brighter, with 50th-anniversary chairman Wendell J. Ashton hoping to raise close to $1 million toward meeting a state-authorized matching grant of $1 million for $3 million. (Currently he has close to $400,000 committed.)
Short of that - well, however welcome bigger individual contributions might be, there probably needs to be an even wider-spread public response. Unless, of course, you have no objection to hearing this state's next 50 years of concerts served up by, say, the Sorenson Symphony Orchestra.
Next weekend's program will also be presented Thursday at Brigham Young University, at 7:30 p.m. in the Harris Fine Arts Center, kicking off out-of-town series in Provo, Ogden and Logan. Once again, the Salt Lake concerts will be preceded by a 7:15 talk on the music by the conductor.
For ticket information call 533-6407.