New Jersey Symphony Centennial History Book

NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY A Century of Great Music 1922–2022

NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY

A Century of Great Music 1922–2022

49 Zdenek Macal: A New Concert Hall, Recordings and More

1992–2003

55 Composers Commissioned and Premiered by the New Jersey Symphony

57 Järvi and Lacombe

2003–2016

64 The Zhang Phenomenon

2016–Present

70 Looking to the Next Century

73 Addenda

MUSIC DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE

Dear Friends:

Throughout the 2022-23 season and specifically in November 2022, the New Jersey Symphony commemorates its centennial, a journey of evolution from a small amateur string ensemble presenting concerts at the Montclair Art Museum to a fully professional orchestra presenting concerts in numerous halls statewide each year. It is also a time to celebrate the diverse communities to which the Symphony belongs and the connections between our musicians and audiences throughout New Jersey.

In its second century, the New Jersey Symphony will redefine what it means to be a nationally leading, relevant orchestra in the 21st century. Through adventurous performances, hands-on educational experiences, and robust community programming, we encourage everyone to enjoy the power and creativity of orchestral music in all its forms.

This publication–The New Jersey Symphony: A Century of Great Music 1922-2022–captures the highlights of the Symphony’s first hundred years, including the challenges and successes of growth. But as we look back, we also look forward. We hope you will actively participate in the dreams and aspirations for the future of the New Jersey Symphony in its second hundred years as we strive to fulfill our mission “to connect with the people and diverse communities of New Jersey through the power of live symphonic music to inspire, entertain and educate.”

Xian Zhang

iv THE NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY

INTRODUCTION

Today’s New Jersey Symphony, with its international recognition and multimilliondollar budget, seems light years away from its humble origins as a voluntary ensemble that paid dues and rehearsed on Thursday evenings for three annual concerts. What began 100 years ago as an avocational suburban orchestra is now a powerful cultural force with music that reaches throughout the state and far beyond its borders.

The orchestra’s home base is in Newark, New Jersey’s largest city. But the music never stays there. It travels throughout New Jersey

to concert halls, theaters, parks, healthcare facilities and schools. And with every advancement in technology, the New Jersey Symphony has expanded its audience, and now is known around the world, via radio, television, recordings and the internet.

Decades ago, the orchestra’s founder Russell Barclay Kingman wrote an essay, “The Essentiality of Music in a Troubled World.” His words could not be more prescient, as they lend eloquence to the values of the citizens who have built and nurtured this orchestra over the decades: “… great music is that universal language in supporting it, we cultivate a vineyard which, while yielding unbounded pleasure, is nowadays more essential than ever to human uplift.”

The evolution of the New Jersey Symphony is a fascinating story of men and women—musicians and music lovers—who have believed in their orchestra as an expression of this very spirit.

“… great music is that universal language … in supporting it, we cultivate a vineyard which, while yielding unbounded pleasure, is nowadays more essential than ever to human uplift.”

RUSSELL KINGMAN (C. 1950)

Violinist Debra Biderman with a young student.

FORERUNNERS OF THE NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY 1846–1922

More than 100 years ago, a tremendous amount of musical activity—chamber music, solo recitals, amateur orchestras and choruses—flourished throughout suburban New Jersey, creating a musical garden from which the New Jersey Symphony grew.

Although the first concert of the ensemble now called the New Jersey Symphony occurred in 1922, its antecedents can actually be traced as far back as 1846, shortly after the founding of the New York and Vienna Philharmonics.

At that time German immigrants led in the formation of musical organizations. The Eintracht Orchestra and Singing Society of Newark is believed to be the second oldest orchestra in the US, formed just four years after the Philharmonic Society of New York. Part amateur, part professional, the ensemble was billed as “the only symphonic organization which Newark can boast.” It was eventually reorganized in 1914 as the Newark Symphony Orchestra, the name Anglicized as a concession to anti-German sentiments of the time.

Le : Members of the Newark Symphony Orchestra, date unknown, and a Newark street scene, 1847

A bit to the west of Newark, the Haydn Orchestra of Orange—founded in 1889 and led by Louis Ehrke, a student of 19th-century Europe’s most celebrated violinist, Josef Joachim—merged with the Eintracht at some point in the 1920s. And in 1917, a group calling itself the Llewellyn Ensemble began presenting concerts at the stately Montclair home of William B. Dickson, a prominent businessman and associate of Andrew Carnegie, on Llewellyn

Road. Dickson was an amateur musician, a “lover of music and self-taught pianist” and a founding member of the Montclair Art Museum in the early years of the 20th century.

In May 1922, the Llewellyn Ensemble performed in the Montclair Art Museum, at which time the decision was made to enlarge the group to orchestral dimensions, incorporating musicians from the Newark

and Haydn orchestras, and to employ a paid conductor. Philip James—a composer, choirmaster and organist of St. Luke’s Church in Montclair—was engaged to lead the nascent ensemble. James had recently left the US military, where he had served in the 308th Infantry Band as an instrumentalist, arranger and conductor.

A young man returns from the European battlefields to build a career in music

By the time 27-year-old Philip James was drafted into the military, he was already an accomplished organist, conductor and composer. While undergoing basic training on Long Island, he eagerly took up the tenor saxophone, a new instrument for him. “I shall stay with Co. H until I am a full-fledged bandsman,” James wrote in his diary. “… Miller says my saxophone is a good one and easy to play. He showed me a lot and had me practice in the band barracks …. At the end of six hours I had mastered the fingering … Miller gave me a lesson and was most encouraging. He tells me that in a week, after I can play the ‘Star Spangled

Banner’ he will make me a regular bandsman. As such, I will have no kitchen duty, no guard duty, no terrific hikes and above all no carrying a gun. Sounds unpatriotic but I don’t think I could kill any man no matter how sinful his country.”

After just one year, serving as second lieutenant with the American Expeditionary Forces in France, James was appointed assistant bandmaster of his division. One year later, following the armistice, James was grateful to be returning home, and furthermore elated to be selected as bandleader of General Pershing’s “Own” A.E.F. Headquarters Band, which presented “Victory Loan Concerts” in spring 1919 in major US cities.

Back home in New York City, this ever-resourceful young man eagerly took up the baton to lead a group of talented musicians who had formed the Montclair Art Association Orchestra, and prepared them for their first concert in November 1922.

Above: c 1890s: Broad Street, Newark

Opposite page: c 1890s: Newark Symphony Orchestra with conductor (likely Louis Ehrke)

Chapter 2: EARLY YEARS WITH PHILIP JAMES 1922–1929

The Montclair Art Association Orchestra, as it was then called, consisted of 19 string players—13 men and six women—at its first concert on November 27, 1922, performing music by Purcell, Saint-Saëns and Victor Herbert, and the world premiere of the British composer Cecil Forsyth’s The Dark Road A program note states, “There are still a few vacancies in the orchestra; those interested, who are good readers, should apply to the Conductor …” The first season’s concerts ended at Unity House on Church Street in Montclair (now the Unitarian Church) in May 1923, with a program including Bruch’s violin concerto.

Word of the new orchestra was spreading. By its second season the group—now renamed The Montclair Orchestra—had almost doubled in size, and the expanding audience necessitated a move to a larger venue. The celebrated composer/pianist Percy Grainger was guest conductor that season and the next two as well. Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite for

The Montclair Art Museum as it appeared in the 1920’s, and where the first concert of what was to become the New Jersey Orchestra was performed.

4 THE NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY

strings received its American premiere, as did Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes in 1925–26. Sustaining membership at 10 dollars yielded four seats per concert, and audiences and patronage grew rapidly.

By 1925, the ensemble had grown to 40 strings. It was announced that at the next concert, the ensemble would “augment the orchestra with the full wind and percussion sections necessary for symphony programs.”

Appropriately, a Beethoven symphony, his First, was tackled for the first time. Behind this rapid growth was a prestigious board of trustees, including industry leaders such as Louis Bamberger, Hendon Chubb, Russell Kingman and Sidney Colgate.

Critical reviews of the time declared that the Montclair musicians were improving by leaps and bounds. A review of the season’s first concert maintained that “Today, Montclair has such a body of string players of which it would be difficult to find the superiors, if not the equals, in any similar amateur group.” In search

of a wider subscription base, the orchestra changed its name midway through the 1926–27 season to the more all-embracing New Jersey Orchestra. It had been performing in Orange as the Symphony Society of the Oranges and Maplewood, and there were protests about the use of two names.

The dispute had arisen due to the success of Orange resident Russell Kingman, principal cellist and the key leader of the symphony’s early years, in recruiting so many new subscribers in his hometown. Kingman, besides being a prominent businessman, was an excellent musician, with diverse and notable accomplishments. He was later to act as chairman of the annual Pablo Casals Music Festival and secretary general of the Federation de l’Alliance Française aux États-Unis et au Canada; he was also recognized by the French Legion of Honor. The Kingman home in Orange, called Fiddlewood, was the scene of many post-concert soirees, often featuring the evening’s soloist as guest of honor.

Programming tended toward the conservative side. An orchestra announcement described it as noted for “embracing the unhackneyed yet eschewing the ultramodern.” Works by Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert and Schumann predominated, but also Grieg, Elgar, Glazunov, Debussy, SaintSaëns and Liadov, with arias by Verdi, Puccini, Handel and Mozart upon occasion. Concerts took place at Montclair and Orange High Schools and, in 1928, the orchestra made its first venture across the river to perform in an all-Bach program at the MacDowell Club on East 73rd Street in Manhattan.

Programs often consisted of seven to 10 short pieces instead of two or four major works. Isolated movements (e.g., the third movement Pizzicato ostinato from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony and the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth, which would be the first and last time the orchestra would play Mahler’s music until 1966) were sometimes performed, and soloists would customarily offer a few selections without the orchestra, usually with piano accompaniment.

At the end of the 1928–29 season, Philip James stepped down after leading the orchestra for its first seven years. From then on, his musical career was heavily concentrated on composing and teaching. Highlights of James’ last few years included soloists such as flutist Georges Barrere, pianist Harold Bauer and violinist Mischa Elman. Perhaps these famous soloists needed no introduction to the orchestra’s musically literate patrons, as no guest artists’ bios appeared in printed programs. Particularly noteworthy was a performance by Pablo Casals on February 24, 1928, of Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto and a Bach solo suite. An anonymous pencil entry (perhaps from Philip James) in the concert program notes that “Casals didn’t show up at rehearsal until half an hour before the concert, and then took wicked liberties. However, he played like an angel and came back with us to supper after the concert.”

Upper right: The New Jersey Orchestra’s first concert in New York City

Bo om right: Note (by Philip James?) about a memorable evening with the legendary cellist Pablo Casals

“. . . our NJ Symphony Orchestra is an outstanding example of what can be accomplished by a community in the way of providing its members with the best possible musical fare. During the 17 years of its existence the orchestra has grown steadily in artistic stature and ability until it now ranks among the leading symphony orchestras of the entire country.”

NJSO PRESIDENT CHARLES ARNOTT, 1939

Chapter 3: RENÉ POLLAIN TAKES UP THE BATON 1929–1939

trajectory of the orchestra took a Gallic turn with the appointment Pollain as the ensemble’s second director. Pollain had recently retired as viola of the New York Philharmonic assistant conductor to Walter Damrosch. ever-energetic board president Russell had traveled to Paris to meet Pollain, well-known in Europe.

Montclair’s Mt. Hebron many New Jersey concerts were presented

Newspaper articles told of the musicians’ love and respect for their new maestro, whose unerring ear and kindly, firm direction brought the orchestra to new heights. Additional subscribers were drawn to the group, and a French touch was given to the repertoire, with performances of works by Debussy, Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Bizet and Franck.

At this time, various first-chair positions were filled by New York Philharmonic musicians, and the orchestra’s schedule was arranged to be active on nights when the Philharmonic was idle. The chance to play with New York professionals was beneficial to the New Jersey players. Concerts took place primarily at Orange High School and Mt. Hebron Junior High in Montclair.

In 1932, the orchestra proudly announced the engagement of concertmaster Anton Witek, a native of Bohemia who at age 20 had become concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic; however, his tenure only lasted a few years.

Soloists with the orchestra were, if anything, more prominent and renowned than in earlier years; among them, violinists Joseph Szigeti and Efrem Zimbalist and pianists Josef Lhevinne, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Guiomar Novaës, Mischa Levitzki and José Iturbi.

By January 1934, the orchestra had expanded to nearly 100 players; two-thirds of them were professional or semi-professional musicians, and one-quarter also played concurrently under Toscanini in the New York Philharmonic. A May 1935 editorial in The Oranges puts the history of the orchestra in some perspective, perhaps with the implication that the high praise garnered by the ensemble in its earliest days may have been excessive: “This group was always one of the most capable and ambitious of local musical organizations, but in their early days their ambition sometimes seemed to overreach their capabilities just a little. In

“Before going to Paris I had heard extravagant praise of Mr. Pollain from French and Italian members of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. But they were Latins! So I cautiously inquired among six German members of the Philharmonic, who had been members of the New York Symphony; knowing that what a German might say about a Frenchman would perhaps would be the real ‘lowdown.’ … But these Germans were, if anything, even more enthusiastic.”

RUSSELL KINGMAN, 1938

the interval since this reporter last heard them the group has developed astounding finish. The programs are up to the old standard, but the execution is really amazingly improved …”

In April 1937, the title New Jersey Symphony Orchestra appeared in the program book for the first time. Pollain, with significant community support behind him, had clearly raised both the reputation and self-esteem of the orchestra.

New Jersey audiences’ affection for the charming conductor appears to have been entirely reciprocal, and the Frenchman had even become an American citizen, though he continued spending his summers in his native Nancy, France. By the late 1930s, he could not ignore the dire political scene in Europe, and his New Jersey concert of April 18, 1939, the conclusion of his 10th season, was his last as music director.

The petite “magazette” Cadenza kept audiences engaged with the orchestra’s progress.

Russell Kingman and René Pollain at the Opera Comique in Paris, summer 1938

Chapter 4:

FRIEDER WEISSMANN AND THE WAR YEARS 1940–1947

Frieder Weissmann, described in a contemporary account as a “strict German taskmaster,” must have come as a shock after the genial René Pollain. He may have been just what the orchestra required, however, for many of the ensemble’s most dependable members were heeding the national call to arms.

THE NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY

“… [with radio] today the family enjoys with understanding the works of the great masters, and is learning to comprehend the imperishable quality of those things which are of the spirit

… Beethoven, Bach, Brahms have become familiar spirits in millions of homes and the more troublesome the times become, the more do the people commune with these spirits whether at home, by means of the radio, the phonograph or in the concert hall ... So it is with the deepest satisfaction that one observes the vital interest people are displaying in their music today. It signifies a seeking of the things which are lasting in their values, and which will keep alive the degree of hope necessary to preserve the health and sanity of the race.”

EXCERPT FROM THE POWER OF MUSIC , BY ARTHUR LAUBENSTEIN, NJSO PROGRAM ANNOTATOR, OCTOBER 1941

Weissmann had just made his New York debut as a guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic when the NJSO asked him to substitute for the ailing Pollain at the beginning of the 1939–40 season; by the final pair of concerts in April 1940, it was clear that the French maestro would not return, and Weissmann was named his successor.

A native of Langen, near Frankfurt, Germany, Weissmann was the son of a Hazzan, or cantor. Weissmann was also a composer and studied law briefly. His career experience included appearances at the Berlin State Opera, guest appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic and others, and an impressive list of recordings. Forced to leave Germany in 1933 due to

the rapid rise of virulent antisemitism, he held conducting posts in Amsterdam and Buenos Aires before settling in the US in 1938.

German classics predominated in Weissmann’s repertory, with Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner performed most frequently, leavened by the ever-popular Tchaikovsky (the Piano Concerto No. 1 three times) and music by Rimsky-Korsakov, Dvořák, Richard Strauss (a personal acquaintance), a few American works and his special interest in modern Argentine, Spanish and Italian music. Vocal selections were also featured in five of his seven seasons.

The array of soloists who performed with the orchestra during Weissmann’s tenure was quite distinguished: pianists Artur Schnabel, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Byron Janis and Guiomar Novaës; violinist Joseph Szigeti; violist William Primrose and the great Russian bass Alexander Kipnis.

During the Weissmann years, the concert season was expanded to include four sets of two concerts each. He also led the orchestra in its first recording, in 1941, of its former president and principal cellist Russell Kingman’s own composition for cello solo, chorus and orchestra, Let Your Light So Shine, based on the Adagio of Schumann’s Cello Concerto, with Kingman again soloing in Bach’s Air on a G String in memory of René Pollain. Proceeds from the recording went to Bonds for Britain, a World War II relief project.

As more and more symphony players joined the war effort, Joan Kelsey (a native of Russia), concertmaster since 1935, led an ensemble that was predominantly female. The orchestra had healthy support from area music lovers with Orange and Montclair concerts enjoying wellorganized Subscription Committees. Board membership, which included Mrs. Thomas Edison, had expanded under the leadership of President Charles Arnott.

Women Take to the Stage

Women were a rare sight on professional concert stages in the early 20th century, except as vocal or instrumental soloists. Yet, at early concerts of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, a third of the players were female, beginning a long tradition of integrating women into concert life in New Jersey.

Russian-born Joan Skolnik, a frequent soloist with major orchestras in Europe, had moved to the US in 1926 and married Frederick Kelsey, a symphony board member. In 1935, after giving up her solo career, Kelsey began her 25-year position as concertmaster of the orchestra. Once the US entered World War II, she was leading a mostly female ensemble.

By the Henry Lewis years, women had begun to be well-represented in American orchestras. On the occasion of the orchestra’s 50th anniversary, assistant concertmaster Esther Gilbert must have been pleased to see that women now constituted 25 percent of her colleagues.

Another milestone came about in 1976, when Eve Queler was invited to conduct. Queler had traveled the career path of other notable female conductors of her day by founding her own ensemble, the Opera Orchestra of New York.

By 1990, women made up a third of the orchestra, including an all-female French horn section, led by principal Lucinda-Lewis.

Fast-forward to 2015 and the appointment of Xian Zhang as the orchestra’s first woman music director. Zhang is one of the standout conductors of the day, and she leads an orchestra that is more than 40 percent female.

Gender was not referenced when Angela Merkel became chancellor of Germany, noted Xian Zhang recently. “I look forward to the day when women in my profession won’t be identified as ‘women conductors!’”

Russian-born Joan Kelsey, concertmaster of the orchestra for 25 years

“Today the relationship between orchestra and community becomes ever closer and more meaningful. The days of royal patronage and the rich ‘angel-backer’ are passing, and more than ever before, orchestras must be supported by the broadest cross–section of the people, both individuals and groups.”

SAMUEL ANTEK, 1952

CHAPTER

5: YOUTHFUL ENTHUSIASM AND COMMUNITY SPIRIT GROW WITH SAMUEL ANTEK 1947–1962

By all evidence, Samuel Antek was an inspired choice as the NJSO’s new music director—a man who, above all, invested the orchestra with a vision and renewed sense of resolve to be a “people’s symphony” throughout the state. Under his directorship, the orchestra reached out more than ever into the community, founding its own series of concerts for children, instituting pops concerts and gradually increasing the number of concerts played annually.

Antek had been brought to the NJSO as concertmaster for the 1934–35 season by René Pollain, just prior to Joan Kelsey’s appointment to that position; now, at age 39, he returned as the orchestra’s fourth music director. A Chicago native and violin prodigy who made his solo debut at 15 and studied at Juilliard with Leopold Auer and Albert Spalding, Antek was also a protégé of French conductor Pierre Montreux and, at the time of his NJSO appointment, a violinist under Toscanini in the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

In the post-war years, Antek’s youthful enthusiasm, charisma and good looks were just what the NJSO needed. His goal of community outreach introduced many experiments and innovations. Tickets were reduced to more affordable prices. The orchestra made its radio debut in January 1948. Lecture-recitals were presented. Massive choral-orchestral works were performed for the first time, using local

New Jersey schoolchildren supplied the cover illustrations for the “Music For Fun” concerts.

Opposite page: Samuel Antek happily signs autographs for his young fans; longtime supporter and Symphony Friends President Betty McAlister enjoys the scene.

choruses as another means of community involvement. The grand finale of the orchestra’s 30th anniversary season, 1951–52, was Verdi’s Missa da Requiem—the largest undertaking of the NJSO up to that time—and the final concert of the following season was the ensemble’s first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In the Newark Evening News, music critic Alan Branigan described Antek as “a tall, vast young man who casts an animated and considerable wingspread over the orchestra.”

Perhaps the most important and enduring innovation of the Antek years was his devotion to children’s concerts—a crucial element of the Symphony’s mission to this day. Lucy Antek Johnson noted that her father was “less concerned with whether the children heard Beethoven or Leroy Anderson,” because for Antek, “the experience of enjoying music was paramount.”

performed with children from South Orange and Maplewood schools enthusiastically playing Haydn’s “toys.” In their English classes, students wrote reviews of the concerts, and the one selected as the most discerning was printed in the local newspaper as that paper’s official review of the “Music for Fun” concert.

Children also worked in their art classes on designs for the “Music for Fun” program covers. And in their music classes, students were asked to write short musical sketches of 16 bars, the best of which were arranged by the conductor and performed at the concerts.

Children were so enthralled that they crowded around the maestro after concerts.

For the adults, the conductor stressed the involvement of committees of local residents to assure the orchestra’s development. In

his words: “Today the relationship between orchestra and community becomes ever c loser and more meaningful. The days of royal patronage and the rich ‘angel-backer’ are passing, and more than ever before, orchestras must be supported by the broadest

Below: Excerpt from a brochure promoting the orchestra for its 30th anniversary

Engaging the Younger Generation

Widespread cutbacks in music education from public schools have made it critical for orchestras and other musical groups to fill the gap, as they believe in the innate value of music education as well as the need for nurturing the next generation of musicians, music lovers and supporters. Thus, for decades the Symphony has embraced music education as a vital component of its mission.

“ … no greater contribution is made by an orchestra to civic enrichment than in the bringing of fine musical entertainment to the children of the community by giving them ‘children’s concerts,’” wrote Samuel Antek in 1950. Even with plentiful access to music in public schools in Antek’s day, he knew that there was no better way of developing a love of music than by exposing children to the concert experience early on.

Antek was serious about “Music For Fun” concerts. He understood that without enjoyment of music, orchestras could not exist, and the fun needed to start at an early age. The fun took in music from Antonio Vivaldi to Leroy Anderson, with concerts presented in Montclair, South Orange, East Orange, Livingston and Summit.

Had Antek lived beyond his 48 years, he might have become as famous as Leonard Bernstein in introducing young people to symphonic music. His charisma on and off the podium was magical. Word of his success spread, and led to additional engagements and posts with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony and others that saw the benefits of engaging the younger generation.

Future Music Director Henry Lewis, famous in his day

Youth orchestra players

Artists Auditions program, which gave cash prizes and performance opportunities to the state’s most talented young players, he gifted many young musicians with a platform to reward their talents and hard work. Well past his last concerts with the orchestra he, along with his wife, Marilyn Horne, were generous supporters of the program.

The most ambitious of current youth music programs is the New Jersey Symphony Youth Orchestra program. Middle– and high–school students experience orchestral performance, and are coached by orchestra players. The project began in 1991 with the formation of the Greater Newark Youth Orchestra, designed to welcome children from underserved communities.

2021 saw a creative high point, when, in the midst of the worldwide pandemic, youth orchestra members

Many firsts populated the 1950s, including the first outdoor performance at the Studer estate in Montclair (with soprano Beverly Sills as soloist), first gala fundraiser, founding of a junior symphony orchestra and observance of NJSO Symphony Week. In addition, the orchestra performed for the 10th anniversary of the United Nations at the Mosque Theatre in Newark (now Symphony Hall).

Antek, a gifted writer, contributed essays about the importance of music education and community support to different publications, including The New Jersey Club Woman

The orchestra’s future had never looked so bright. The magic combination of Antek’s enthusiastic leadership and the unparalleled community involvement he engendered had readied the orchestra for its next step into the league of the big-time professionals.

But the New Jersey musicians were not to make that great leap with their beloved conductor, for he died suddenly of a heart attack in January 1958, at the age of 48. The Samuel Antek Memorial Fund was established to assist young conductors, and later nurtured gifted musicians with the NJSO’s Young Artist Auditions program, founded under Henry Lewis. Betty McAlister, who chaired the original committee, recalled in a 1986 interview:

“More than any other individual, Sam Antek was the motivating force behind the growth and achievement of our orchestra … The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will always bear his mark.”

Still reeling from the loss of Maestro Antek, the NJSO board appointed 34-year-old Dutch conductor Matyas Abas. Abas was a gifted violinist who discovered conducting as a high-school student. During the war years of Nazi occupation, he joined the underground forces, was imprisoned by the Germans in

1943 and narrowly escaped transport to the Buchenwald concentration camp. After serving as an officer of repatriation to the Allied Forces, he returned to his music career, playing violin in the Rotterdam Philharmonic. He made his conducting debut there in 1951 and, with a grant from the Dutch government, moved to the US to continue his studies.

Abas founded a symphony orchestra in Midland, Texas, and in 1953 became conductor of the Waterloo Symphony Orchestra in Iowa. From Waterloo, he came to the NJSO, where he continued Antek’s work with the “Music for Fun” series and expanded the concert season in other ways.

Highlights of Abas’ tenure included guest appearances by Beverly Sills and pianist Claudio Arrau. His programs exhibited a wide variety of music, with the orchestra giving its first performances of music by Bartók and Kodaly.

Opposite page: Samuel Antek was a gi ed and gracious writer.

with a deficit of only $170, despite a budget of more than $60,000—its largest ever. The increased expenditures of the orchestra no doubt stemmed in part from the fact that its makeup was now predominantly professional: 50 to 55 professionals playing with only 15 to 20 amateurs.

NJSO’s rating from Community Orchestra to the Metropolitan Orchestra class, a distinction it shared with only 25 other orchestras in the US and Canada, based primarily on the fact that the orchestra’s annual budget had climbed to between $100,000 and $250,000. The 24 orchestras with larger budgets were classified as Major Orchestras.

Samuel Antek rehearsal photos, from the orchestra’s 30th anniversary brochure, 1952

Eager to test his mettle with his own orchestra, the 33-year-old maestro thrust his charismatic profile into New Jersey concert life, challenging his players and audiences with increasingly colorful repertoire. Early concert reviews were mixed, citing the inadequate rehearsal times for challenging programs, yet Schermerhorn was determined to make great strides with the orchestra.

His idea was to take the musicians along a bit more each year in technique and expanded repertoire. Whereas Samuel Antek had rarely strayed from the traditional classical and Romantic works espoused by his mentor Toscanini, the new music director was more innovative in his programming, along the lines of his mentor, Bernstein, yet was always careful to balance the new with the old.

In this way, the NJSO finally got to sink its teeth into numerous 20th-century classics by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Ravel and Webern. In American music, the NJSO presented the East Coast premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Symphony and commissioned the Symphony No. 6 of Roger Sessions.

Although the orchestra continued to perform throughout the region, in 1965 it moved its base of operations from a converted one-

family home in Orange to the Mosque Theatre in Newark—the orchestra’s first home in a concert hall setting. The Mosque, a grand and elaborately decorated, built in 1925 and purchased by the city from private owners in 1964, was renamed Symphony Hall in 1965 in honor of its new chief tenant.

The Schermerhorn years showcased the NJSO in a number of special events, including a performance with jazz legend Benny Goodman at Symphony Hall; a Westchester County, NY, concert with the most celebrated opera star of

Breaking Barriers in and to Classical Music

Newcomers can find the atmosphere surrounding traditional classical music performances stuffy and offputting, and a barrier to enjoyment of what is a timeless and universal art form. From Samuel Antek through Xian Zhang, and with notable support from administrative staff and board members, the New Jersey Symphony has opened the concert hall to all, regardless of race or ethnicity, educational or socioeconomic status.

Among pioneering Black players in major orchestras were the NJSO’s Principal Timpani Randy Hicks and Principal Bass Paul Harris, who joined the NJSO in 1979 and 1990, respectively. Increasing diversity on the Symphony concert stage has led to memorable concerts with, among others, guest conductors James DePreist, Leslie Dunner, André Raphel, Michael Morgan and José Luis Domínguez, current artistic director of the New Jersey Symphony Youth Orchestra. The soloist spotlight has highlighted even greater diversity, with guest stars Leontyne Price, Harolyn Blackwell, Sarah Vaughan, André Watts, Anthony McGill, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Jeanine De Bique, Bobby McFerrin and Jessye Norman.

Special events and initiatives have played a large part in welcoming newcomers to the orchestral experience. In 1991, Executive Director Larry Tamburri and Education

Director Judith Nachison collaborated on founding the Greater Newark Youth Orchestra (now the New Jersey Symphony Youth Orchestra), with the express mission to provide performance training and opportunities for underserved schoolchildren in the city and surrounding towns.

The Symphony has also embraced performing and commissioning music by a diverse group of contemporary composers. In 1997 the NJSO commissioned New Jersey composer and Pulitzer Prize winner George Walker for his Pageant and Proclamation, to celebrate the opening of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. Singers from NJSO’s Community Chorus, founded in 1998, participated in the 2002 premiere performances of jazz trumpeter/composer Hannibal’s monumental oratorio God, Mississippi, and a Man Called Evers, co-commissioned by NJSO and NJPAC.

Maestro Xian Zhang brings an even broader world view to the New Jersey Symphony’s stage. Her mid-winter Lunar New Year Celebrations have orchestra and guest artists exploring the blend of western and eastern musical traditions, with an audience that often includes total newcomers to the concert hall.

Principal bass Paul Harris was a presence on the New Jersey Symphony stage for more than three decades.

The NJSO’s general manager, Adam Pinsker, supported by enthusiastic trustees, was the backstage energy behind Schermerhorn’s dynamic leadership. Expansion, however, led to financial strain. Presenting 40 concerts annually as well as bringing small ensembles to thousands of schoolchildren and performing 17 full-orchestra children’s concerts resulted in a 1964 budget climb to $160,000, with an accrued deficit of $20,000.

To the orchestra’s rescue came a large grant from the Ford Foundation, which had announced that it was distributing $85 million to the nation’s top 50 orchestras. The NJSO received $650,000, of which $500,000 was on a matching basis, requiring it to raise an equal amount. The money was earmarked to substantially increase children’s concerts and education programs, which were critical for the development of young musicians and future

audiences. Jonathan Spitz, later to become the NJSO’s principal cellist, has vivid memories from his high-school years of hearing the orchestra perform Tchaikovsky and Ravel at Orrie de Nooyer Auditorium in Hackensack.

The orchestra’s goal in these years was, in the words of then New Jersey US Senator Harrison A. Williams Jr., to release “the orchestra from an ill-deserved place in the shadow of New York’s cultural achievements.” Under Schermerhorn, that effort was begun in earnest. In September 1967, after accepting an offer to become music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, he announced that the 1967–68 season would be his last. Henry Wallhauser wrote in The Star-Ledger: “In six seasons with the orchestra, he has shaped the rather lackluster ensemble he took over in 1962 into an ensemble that plays with precision and beauty of sound. With it he has produced a musical following and an audience that no longer pays its cultural respects by dutifully buying a season’s subscription, but attends because it likes the music the young conductor and his orchestra make.”

At his farewell concert in March 1968, Schermerhorn earned cheers from a packed audience at Symphony Hall, following a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Symphony’s own chorus along with the chorus of Seton Hall University.

The NJSO, by now consisting entirely of professional musicians, was poised for its leap into the symphonic major leagues. The orchestra made headlines with the appointment of its next music director, Henry Lewis. The geographic spread of the ensemble expanded in New Jersey and over state borders for acclaimed concerts at Wolf Trap in Virginia, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and, challenging New York on its own turf, Carnegie Hall. At the peak of Lewis’ tenure, more than 100 concerts were played in over 25 locations during a 36-week season, and the annual budget grew to $1.3 million.

Big-name soloists included vocalists Luciano Pavarotti (his American concert debut), Victoria de los Ángeles, Beverly Sills, William Warfield, Joan Sutherland, Birgit Nilsson and Marilyn Horne (Lewis’ wife); pianists Van Cliburn, André Watts, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Alicia de Larrocha; and violinists Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman.

The orchestra’s growing pains, however, were considerable, with significant turnover in personnel and turbulent labor relations, as Lewis fought for increased performance standards. The dizzying concert schedule no doubt put major strain on the musicians and administrative staff.

Maestro Lewis’ goal, backed in full by the orchestra’s board under Henry Becton, was to bring international recognition to the NJSO. As accomplished as it had become under Schermerhorn, there was plenty of room to grow. It was determined that full-time employment was necessary to attract the best players—an admirable ground plan in theory

but one with unfortunate consequences for many orchestra veterans who had to choose between an expanded season and their primary employment, many of them as music teachers. By 1969, two-thirds of the players were newcomers to the orchestra.

By 1970, NJSO had not only weathered its labor problems but had also emerged musically unscathed. Local critics and audiences were cheering, and The New York Times’ Harold Schonberg, dean of New York music critics, praised the Carnegie Hall debutants for their “great deal of virtuosity” and their conductor as “a musician of skill and temperament.” New Yorker critic Winthrop Sergeant wrote,

Across the River

Benjamin Franklin famously spoke of New Jersey as “a keg tapped at both ends”—New York City and Philadelphia—making it perpetually challenging for the state to find the limelight. The keg’s upside? It’s surely behind New Jerseyans’ o -admired resilience, persistence and pride.

The people of the NJSO—musicians, board, sta and supporters—live up to that proud tradition, especially given that the world’s greatest musical city is just a short distance across the Hudson River. At times that gulf can seem very wide. “Despite having been assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic for years,” noted Xian Zhang, “I had to move to Italy before I was

York sandbox.” From 1928 to the present day, the orchestra has played there with the highest of aspirations and notable success. When you run with someone who runs faster, you run faster, and when you perform in the shadow of NYC, you rise to the competition.

Beginning with an all-Bach concert at the MacDowell Club in NYC in 1928, the New Jersey Symphony has performed frequently in New York, most o en at Carnegie Hall and occasionally at Lincoln Center, and enhanced its reputation for musical excellence with those events. That trajectory has been altered somewhat in the last 25 years with fewer performances in the city, mirrored by more frequent trips across the river in the other direction by New Yorkers, including critics, to NJPAC’s world-class concert hall in Newark.

venerable publications have been outstanding. “The trans-Hudson orchestra,” wrote the Times’ lead music critic a few years ago, “may not leap to mind when great international ensembles are mentioned. However, it a acked Stravinsky’s work, a famous test piece for both conductors and players, with something very much like world-class musicianship.”

Here at the New Jersey Symphony, we will continue being resilient, persistent and proud as we enter our second century.

“It is a first-rate ensemble ... and Mr. Lewis is therefore to be counted among the country’s foremost orchestral trainers.”

The groundbreaking career of Henry Lewis has been widely documented. As the youngest member (appointed at age 16) and first Black member of the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra, and later the first Black conductor of a major American orchestra (the NJSO) and the first Black conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, Lewis was a critical figure in paving a path for people of color, especially conductors, to concert stages in the US.

Lewis likely tossed aside headlines such as The New York Times’ “Slums to Hear New Jersey Symphony” announcing outdoor summer concerts in Newark as just another glaring example of the prejudice that he was committed to alleviating. As for the occasional negative comments from the Black community about conducting European music, Lewis responded (as reported in The New York Times) that he was “trying to fulfill the difficult, sometimes conflicting goals of building an internationally respected orchestra while taking music to the people.”

Among Lewis’ first appearances, in summer 1968, were three free open-air concerts in central Newark, where violent unrest had erupted the previous year. The programs were dedicated to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who had been assassinated in early April, and the program was underwritten by attorney Alan V. Lowenstein, a visionary philanthropist who became NJSO president in 1970. Several Black musicians became members of the orchestra during these years, and increased emphasis was placed on youth and low-priced family concerts in Symphony Hall.

Aided by substantial government and foundation grants, the orchestra continued to expand youth concerts. The orchestra performed summer concerts at the new Garden State Arts Center and was resident at New Jersey’s Waterloo Festival. Bolstered by national and international recognition as a formidable newcomer on the music scene, the orchestra attracted increasingly large audiences to its concerts throughout New Jersey, defying predictions that the state might not support the expanded schedule.

Carnegie Hall concerts became a regular occurrence and for the orchestra’s 50thanniversary season, there were 120 subscription concerts as well as appearances at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. A 50th-anniversary concert at Symphony Hall featured star appearances by Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne.

Lewis’ repertoire included classics from Bach and Handel to Wagner and Strauss, with significant excursions into 20th-century composers, including Stravinsky, Hindemith, Ives, Bartók, Prokofiev, Copland, Foss, Ruggles, Penderecki and Lutosławski.

And yet, despite having achieved its principal goal of establishing the NJSO as an orchestra of major stature, tensions simmered. Some musicians and critics grumbled that Lewis’ programming was insubstantial and repetitive, that it ignored the standard repertory, and some musicians complained of “podium despotism.”

Opposite: Henry Lewis, always a dynamic presence leading the orchestra

Perhaps the tension might have eased if the orchestra’s budget had been under control. But a combination of overly optimistic spending in the early Lewis years and the unexpected withdrawal of government grants required scaling back the 1973–74 season from 36 to 23 weeks, deeply souring relations between management and musicians.

December 1975 brought an announcement that the 1975–76 season would be the conductor’s last. According to Michael Redmond of The Star-Ledger in May 1976, “The impact of that unexpected news on the orchestra’s morale was dramatic—they have never played so brilliantly, these musicians.” One of Lewis’ last concerts was the first annual youth musician awards, later called Young Artists Auditions; one of the first winners was the young New Jersey violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, who was awarded third place.

“When Henry came in,” recalled the late NJSO assistant concertmaster Esther Gilbert, “then things really started to change … It was all very glamorous. Henry had his problems, but he was a gentleman of great taste and great ambition.”

Chapter 7: A BRIEF PERIOD OF CALM, AND THE NEXT STORM 1976–1985

Following the excitement and turmoil of the Lewis years, the board of directors, led by Chairman Alan Lowenstein and President Sydney Stevens, sought stability, and invited the esteemed conductor and educator Max Rudolf to serve as artistic advisor in 1976.

Thomas Michalak conducts; Max Rudolf rehearses

Rudolf, music director emeritus of the Cincinnati Symphony and former artistic administrator of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, was the calming influence the New Jerseyans needed. Diplomatic, widely respected, evenhanded and past the age of career-building, he was responsible for programming, coordinating guest soloists and guest conductors, and advising on the selection of a new music director.

Among the conductors engaged were John Nelson, Louis Lane, Irwin Hoff man and Everett Lee. The orchestra paved a new path when it invited the celebrated conductor Eve Queler to lead a program featuring Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. Also conducting that season were former Music Director Henry Lewis and future Music Director Thomas Michalak.

In October 1976, the musicians voted to accept a new two-year contract; it was the first time in seven years that an agreement was reached without a protracted dispute. Rudolf’s leadership was given credit for the ease of the negotiations.

“His music making can only be described as sensational,” wrote Michael Redmond in The Star-Ledger, describing Thomas Michalak’s first subscription concert as music director in 1977.

“There is unusual beauty of sonority, brilliance of color and vibrance of rhythm,” he added.

The New York Times’ Joseph Horowitz wrote, “Michalak’s exuberance resulted in an exciting, involving performance.” No doubt about it, the

Veteran conductor Max Rudolf was a steadying influence on the orchestra as concerts throughout the state continued apace.

New Jersey players had a bonafide live wire as a leader, brimming with rare musicality and temperament.

A native of Poland, where he had been, at age 16, a featured soloist with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Michalak had won a Silver Medal at the Moscow International Violin Competition. In America, after studying at the Curtis Institute with Ivan Galamian, he won the 1971 Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood for

conducting. Previous to the New Jersey post, he was music director of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic and assistant conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony, where he earned a reputation for fierce perfectionism.

Michalak’s NJSO tenure was exciting musically but equally as stormy as the most turbulent of the Lewis years. His approach to firing and demoting players early on resulted in substantial morale problems. Within two years of his appointment, 50 percent of the musicians were new.

In 1978, a new summer soundstage, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Charitable Trust, expanded the orchestra’s reach to more communities. In 1979, a Gershwin gala concert featuring jazz great Sarah Vaughan, a native of Newark,

was presented at Symphony Hall. The show was the subject of the NJSO’s first nationwide PBS telecast, “Gershwin and Song,” for which Vaughan won an Emmy Award.

At the beginning of the 1980–81 season, advance ticket sales were the highest in the orchestra’s history and financial contributions had also increased. But budgetary costs had risen faster, leading to the biggest crisis in the orchestra’s history—cancellation of the entire season. Much soul-searching ensued, with all concluding that major shifts were needed for the organization to return to a healthy state.

“The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, which has not performed since August 1980 and which seemed in danger of disappearing, has returned to life,” wrote John Rockwell in The New York Times in September 1981. All breathed a great sigh of relief as the new executive director, John Hyer, led a redesign of the season, moving concerts away from suburban high-school auditoriums and into larger theaters in urban centers. The musicians reluctantly approved a major cutback to a 14week season.

“His [Michalak’s] music making can only be described as sensational ...there is unusual beauty of sonority, brilliance of color and vibrance of rhythm”

MICHAEL REDMOND, THE STAR LEDGER, 1977

The Michalak years were far less troubled musically. The standard repertory was well represented, with an emphasis on Slavic composers. An electrifying all-Szymanowski program was performed and taken to Carnegie Hall, where both orchestra and conductor garnered considerable praise. Notable soloists over these years included pianists Emanuel Ax and Rudolf Firkušnsy, violinist Kyung Wha Chung, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and, in a concert at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, the legendary Hungarian pianist Annie Fischer.

Michalak’s New Jersey days—indeed, his life— came to a sad end. In February 1983, following a dispute with the board of directors and a cancellation of his appearance at a concert on two-hours’ notice, he was fired for breach of contract. He resurfaced the next fall as artistic advisor and conductor of the Cathedral Concert Orchestra in Newark, but died of a heart attack soon afterwards, in July 1986, at age 45. NJSO Associate Conductor George Manahan stepped up energetically as a skillful musical leader for the remainder of the season.

Besides Manahan, guest conductors for the 1984-85 season included former music directors Kenneth Schermerhorn and Henry

Lewis, as well as Maxim Shostakovich, John Lanchbery, Sixten Ehrling, Jorge Mester and, in December 1984, future Music Director Hugh Wolff.

In the summer of 1984, the NJSO added the June Opera Festival of New Jersey to its usual summer venues. A grand evening at Madison Square Garden in August 1984 featured the orchestra in concert with Luciano Pavarotti at the height of his international fame in a live, nationwide PBS telecast.

A radio broadcast series produced by WNYC debuted in 1985. The concerts were also broadcast from Trenton and Philadelphia, which provided complete coverage for New Jersey listeners. In June, the stage was set for two announcements that would usher in a charmed new age for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. First, that the orchestra’s financial situation was no longer critical, and that the fiscal year was expected to end in the black. Second, on June 12th, that Hugh Wolff would be the NJSO’s ninth music director.

At the peak of his popularity, tenor Luciano Pavaro i performed with the NJSO in 1984 at a sold-out and nationally televised PBS concert at Madison Square Garden.

Chapter 8: HUGH WOLFF REVIVES THE EXCITEMENT 1985–1992

The board of directors voted unanimously to appoint the 31-year-old Hugh Wolff after an extensive two-year search. Wolff had won national recognition as one of the first two recipients of the Affiliate Artists’ Seaver Conducting Award, the largest conducting prize in the world, which cited “the talent and artistry of American conductors on the threshold of major international careers.”

Wolff had previously served as associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC, and as music director of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic. Early on, he spoke of his intentions to lead the NJSO back into prominence. “When people think of music in New Jersey, they think of Bruce Springsteen and Frank Sinatra. The time has come to add the New Jersey Symphony to the top of the list. I am confident that this orchestra can challenge the finest in the country.

Achieving this goal will require much hard work, much money and inexhaustible musical energy. I have no illusions that it will be easy, but I sense that we are all ready and eager for the challenge.”

New Jersey had a winner. Wolff was a serious young musician who realized that a great orchestra and a faithful audience are built not just on superstar soloists but on inspired presentation of the music. His first set of

subscription concerts in May 1986 featured an “All-Beethoven Spectacular,” in which he recreated an 1808 concert conducted by Beethoven at which his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, among other works, received their premieres.

Wolff was interested in new ways of presenting symphonic music—festival programming of related music, chamber orchestras and mixed pop-and-classical concerts were among his ideas, in place of the traditional overture-concerto-symphony format in which programming can become stagnant.

Wolff inaugurated a chamber-orchestra series in 1986–87 at Princeton and Rutgers Universities. His innovative programming strongly embraced contemporary music, of which his special “Soundings” concert in 1986, later televised on PBS, was an example. In May 1989, he gave the premiere of Ezra Laderman’s Concerto for Double Orchestra, the first work to be commissioned by the orchestra since Sessions’ Sixth Symphony two decades earlier. The next season brought another commission:

Hugh Wol led Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, and Dudley Moore in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, at a gala concert at the Garden State Arts Center, summer 1987.

works by Eleanor Cory, Gerald Levinson, Jay Kernis, John Harbison and George Walker.

Wolff’s successes with the NJSO received unusually wide attention, particularly following their first Carnegie Hall concert

with something very much like world-class musicianship.”

Later that year, the orchestra played an all-Bernstein concert at Carnegie Hall; the composer, who claimed never to have heard

the NJSO before, said afterwards to the audience: “I get itchy when I hear my music conducted by somebody else. I want to get up and do it myself. This is a big exception tonight. The music is being played so expertly, it is being conducted so beautifully, that I feel extreme gratitude. This is a terrific orchestra.”

Among other notable appearances in the Wolff years were a concert with his mentor, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, at the Kennedy Center; eight performances at Carnegie Hall; and two performances at Lincoln Center, including a concert revival of the 1937 Rodgers and Hart classic musical Babes in Arms, recorded later by the New World label.

Left to right: Program cover from the Adare Festival in Ireland, summer 1991; and a holiday concert for children, 1989.

The youthful enthusiasm and fresh musical ideas placed the troubled Michalak years and canceled season solidly in the rearview mirror. At the same time, Governor Thomas H. Kean and his administration of avid arts supporters infused millions into the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, creating new government support for the symphony. And ideas were brewing about building a world-class performing arts venue in the state’s largest city, Newark. Symphony Hall, perpetually underfunded, had lost much of its luster and was in dire need of upkeep and renovation.

A chorus of cheers was heard from musicians, staff, board and supporters when Governor Kean announced state funding for a New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark in December 1989. Key New Jersey civic and business leaders, including Newark native Raymond G. Chambers, were thrilled with Kean’s vision, and donated significant sums to the project. Groundbreaking for the project took place in 1993.

In 1990 the ambitious NJSO Executive Director John Hyer saw an opportunity for the orchestra to make an international splash

with the creation of the Adare Festival, on the grounds of the historic Adare estate in western Ireland, recently purchased by symphony board member Thomas Kane. The orchestra presented two summers of a three-week festival, sharing stages with legendary Irish flutist James Galway and the Irish National Orchestra.

“I get itchy when I hear my music conducted by somebody else. I want to get up and do it myself. This is a big exception tonight. The music is being played so expertly, it is being conducted so beautifully, that I feel extreme gratitude. This is a terrific orchestra.”

LEONARD BERNSTEIN, 1987

The NJSO was on a roll with Wolff at the helm and a fully supportive board and administrative staff. National broadcasts presented by American Public Radio added to the buzz. Subscription sales surged with sophisticated marketing, and media attention was broadly positive. The concert season was expanded.

To celebrate the Hugh Wolff years and the orchestra’s 70th anniversary season in the spring of 1993, four star soloists—Yefim Bronfman, Robert McDuffie, Carter Brey and André Watts—all donating their services, joined the orchestra for an all-Beethoven gala concert and black-tie dinner at Symphony Hall.

Yet early in 1991 Wolff announced that he would not continue as music director after August 1992. He had been principal conductor with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra since September 1987, and now he would be music director and would move with his family to the Midwest, and engage in a busy recording schedule with the ensemble.

When asked recently what he most admired about the NJSO during his time, Wolff quickly cited the “big ambitions and nothing-can-stopus attitude of the players and management,” backed by an “ambitious board of directors.”

“I would like to be remembered as having done something to expand and stretch the orchestra from the standpoint of repertoire, and stylistically,” noted Wolff at the time. “People ask me, ‘Did you leave a Hugh Wolff sound?’ In a sense, I hope I didn’t. The orchestra should play Ravel and sound French, or Bernstein and sound American. We did Handel concerti grossi, we commissioned new music, and we played everything in between. They should be able to hop from one style to the next—that’s my proudest accomplishment.”

Symphony donors at a hard hat tour during construction of NJPAC in Newark

CHAPTER 9 ZDENEK MACAL: A NEW CONCERT HALL, RECORDINGS AND MORE 1992–2003

Berlioz’s dramatic orchestral showpiece, the Symphonie Fantastique, was the perfect vehicle for Zdenek Macal’s debut concert with NJSO in the spring of 1989. The full force of his dynamic podium presence was evident and confirmed a reputation established during his tenure with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and, prior to that, with the Prague Symphony Orchestra in his native Czechoslovakia.

Opening night at NJPAC: Zdenek Macal leads the orchestra, soloists, and the Westminster Symphonic Choir in October 1997, with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

Above:

Below,

“Macal seemed to be inventing the music himself...a kind of conducting, risky by today’s standards, that recalls the great musical personalities of a half century ago.”

ARTHUR SMITH, THE WASHINGTON POST, 1994

The guide for the orchestra’s 70th season, 1992

le to right: Young players join the orchestra in 2008, timpanist Randy Hicks, and Maestro Macal.

Appointed NJSO music director in 1992, Macal’s podium swagger was a contrast to the more cerebral style of Hugh Wolff. During the Macal years, the orchestra moved into the newly opened NJPAC, made acclaimed recordings, instituted winter and summer festivals and enjoyed unprecedented growth in audiences and financial support.

Born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1934, Macal was a well-known podium presence in Europe prior to abruptly departing his native country in 1968, in reaction to the Soviet invasion that suppressed the mass demonstrations and reform attempts of the Prague Spring. Beginning violin studies at age four with his father, he went on to study conducting and first received international attention by winning two prestigious conducting competitions, including the 1966 Dimitri Mitropoulos Competition in New York, chaired by Leonard Bernstein.

Macal was, of course, attached to the music of his compatriot Antonin Dvořák. He explored Dvořák’s music in depth, with performances of all the symphonies and also of the large choral works, partnering with choral conductor Joseph Flummerfelt, director of New Jersey’s superb Westminster Symphonic Choir.

Macal and the NJSO won wide acclaim for their recordings on the Delos label. The issues included Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with the Westminster Symphonic Choir. Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony and music of Mussorgsky and Berlioz. The first issue, of rarely performed works by Russian composer Reinhold Glière, was greeted with exceptional

praise, with The Washington Post writing that Macal “seemed to be inventing the music himself … a kind of conducting, risky by today’s standards, that recalls the great musical personalities of a half century ago.”

The standout event of the Macal years was the opening of the $187 million New Jersey Performing Arts Center in the fall of 1997, broadcast nationally on PBS. The entire NJSO family had eagerly monitored the construction and was especially thrilled to have one of the country’s most acclaimed acousticians, Russell Johnson, working with the architects on what would be revealed as a superior chamber for orchestral music. “New Hall Purrs to Perfection,” proclaimed The Star Ledger for its front-page reports on the opening concerts.

NJPAC’s success sent ripples throughout the state. Under the leadership of CEO Larry Tamburri and Board Chair Victor Parsonnet, the NJSO’s subscriber base grew to an all-time high of almost 25,000, fundraising took off and the orchestra posted a surplus of close to $1 million in 1998. A new spirit of cooperation and mutual respect between management and the musicians’ union led to a new contract for the orchestra, signed three months early.

Standouts in the Macal years included the highly praised Winter Festivals, the premiere of a major opus by Hannibal, and a series of recordings on Delos International.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, sent extreme shock and sadness through the entire Symphony family. Hastily reorganized concerts were performed later that week and, in 2002, to mark the first anniversary of the attacks, the NJSO presented a concert at Liberty State Park in the shadows of the World Trade Center ruins of lower Manhattan. The orchestra’s solemn performance of Verdi’s great Missa da Requiem was broadcast nationally on PBS.

The orchestra received outsized media coverage in 2003 when New Jersey businessman Herbert Axelrod, an avid collector of Stradivarius, Guarneri and other prized antique instruments from the 17thand 18th-century workshops of Cremona, Italy, offered to sell the orchestra 30 instruments, at a price established at less than 50 percent of the appraised value.

Sophisticated marketing and fundraising of the The Golden Age Collection added to the new allure of the NJSO, and the players were thrilled to have the opportunity to perform with such superior instruments.

Like Hugh Wolff, Macal had a keen interest in contemporary music, and he led world and New Jersey premieres of works by American composers George Walker, Joan Tower, Richard Danielpour, Steve Reich, Christopher Rouse and former NJSO violinist Ellen Taafe Zwilich.

Breaking away from traditional orchestral programming, and working with creative consultant and renowned author Joseph Horowitz, Macal led a series of winter festivals, each centered around the work and milieu of one composer. Explorations into the music of Wagner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Rachmaninoff and Dvořák were critical successes. In 2003, after Macal had become music director emeritus, the orchestra presented a particularly innovative “American Roots” festival which offered music from Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Scott Joplin to Charles Ives, George Gershwin, Art Tatum and Leonard Bernstein.

52 THE NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY

The Golden Age Collection

One of the more fascinating developments in the NJSO’s recent history was its acquisition in 2003 of 30 prized string instruments from 17th and 18th century Cremona, Italy, including many by Stradivarius and Guarneri del Gesu. Widespread media coverage of the acquisition, and then, a few years later, of the divestment, unfortunately led to some misconceptions. At the end of the day, the Golden Age Collection, as it was move as a Millionaire had a rare personal were instruments Stradivarius

As Axelrod

instruments in active use, and approached his state orchestra with a unique proposal—to sell the NJSO his collection for less than half of the appraised value of $50 million.

A committee of musicians, managers and board members was quickly assembled to explore the novel proposal. After in-depth study and much discussion, the committee gave the go-ahead to purchase the instruments, all believing that the move would be a standout way to enhance the orchestra’s reputation nationally and internationally. With the aid of a bond

Yet it was not to last. As the orchestra had been accumulating significant deficits in the 2000s, it was determined that the best move for fiscal stability would be to sell the instruments. In the meantime, Herbert Axelrod had been convicted on tax fraud unrelated to the instrument sale, but media coverage conflated this development with the news that the initial $50 million evaluation, by an at-the-time prominent German dealer, had been vastly overblown.

As a result, the NJSO was perceived by some critics to have made a poor decision in acquiring the instruments.

Behind the Scenes

Behind every great orchestra are two essential groups of people—the board of trustees and the administrative sta From the earliest days of the New Jersey Symphony in Montclair and Orange, Board President Russell Kingman was the key person whose passion for music made the orchestra’s founding and early success possible. He set the example for many board members to come—men and women who were and are not just music lovers but people who believe that the performing arts are critical in creating and maintaining a civil society.

With such dynamic successors to Kingman, the New Jersey Symphony has survived and thrived for 100 years. While it is not required for board members to have some experience as musicians, it is a frequent common denominator. Russell Kingman was a cellist; Dr. Merton Griswold a violinist; Dr. Victor Parsonnet a pianist; Ann Borowiec a clarinetist and Dr. Victor Bauer a violist, among others.

That common denominator is also found among the administrative sta Executive directors and CEOs have have included opera singers, string players, an oboist and pianists, and many of the sta members they oversee have spent years with music study and performance. The result? An extra dose of devotion to the orchestra’s mission, and in a number of cases, many years of dedicated service. Chief of Sta & Board Liaison Philip Leininger, an organist and choirmaster, is one of many sta members who has spent the bulk of his career with the orchestra, similar to many of the musicians.

Administrative sta put in a regular workweek managing the daily schedule of the musicians, planning every detail of the performance calendar, handling finances, marketing and fundraising. In addition, they work additional hours on weekdays and weekends with concert duty. There they greet patrons, take care of a myriad of backstage tasks and a end to artists’ needs. What is the ultimate gratification of such hard and time-consuming work on non-profit salaries? Quite simply, the pride of knowing that one is an integral part of the joy of bringing great symphonic music to the community.

CEO Gabriel van Aalst announces the recent Emmy award won by the orchestra

Composer Tan Dun with Trustee Ruth Lipper

NJ Symphony marketing sta greets a endees at NJPAC

COMPOSERS COMMISSIONED AND PREMIERED BY THE NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY

▲ NJ Symphony Commission ● World Premiere ◆ US Premiere ■ Regional Premiere

MICHAEL ABELS ▲● THOMAS ADÈS ▲◆ BRUCE ADOLPHE ● ROBERT ALDRIDGE ▲●■ GERI ALLEN ▲●

DANIEL ASIA ▲■ SÉRGIO ASSAD ▲■ DEREK BERMEL ▲● WILLIAM BOLCOM ■ GAVIN BRYARS ◆ QIGANG CHEN ▲◆

CHARLES COLEMAN ▲● EDWARD T. CONE ● GLEN CORTESE ● ELEANOR CORY ● JEFFREY COTTON ■

JAMES CRAVEN ● CONR AD CUMMINGS ■ RICHARD DANIELPOUR ▲●■ MICHAEL DAUGHERTY ▲● ■

PAQUITO D’RIVERA ▲● PAUL DUKAS ● DONARD ERB ■ JOHN DAVID EARNEST ● CECIL FORSYTH ● DON GILLIS ■

STEWART GOODYEAR ▲● HENRYK GORECKI ■ HANNIBAL LOKUMBE ▲● JOHN HARBISON ▲●■ HERBERT HAUFRECHT ●

MICHAEL HERSCH ■ GUSTAV HOLST ◆ JOHN TASKER HOWARD ● YANJUN HUA ■ STEPHEN JAFFE ▲●

PHILIP JAMES ● CYRIL JENKINS ◆ FEDOR K ABALIN ● ULYSSES KAY ▲● A ARON JAY KERNIS ●■ A. WALTER KRAMER ●

DARRYL KUBIAN ▲● EZR A LADERMAN ▲● BUN-CHING L AM ▲● LIBBY LARSEN ▲● THOMAS OBOE LEE ▲●

GERALD LEVINSON ◆ VIVIAN LI ▲● LOWELL LIEBERMANN ▲●■ HANNIBAL LOKUMBE ▲● STEVEN MACKEY ▲■

W YNTON MARSALIS ▲● ROLF MARTINSSON ◆ CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE ▲● WILLIAM THOMAS MCKINLEY ● DUDLEY MOORE ●

GARY MORGAN ▲● ANTHONY NEWMAN ● NOKUTHULA NGWENYAMA ■ DAVID OTT ■ BORIS PARSADANIAN ◆

KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI ■ MEL POWELL ▲ ANDRÉ PREVIN ◆ SERGEY PROKOFIEV ◆ ■ BERNARD R AND ■

STEVE REICH ■ GEORGE ROCHBERG ● ANNE ROCHLIN ● DANIEL BERNARD ROUMAIN ▲● ■ CHRISTOPHER ROUSE ▲■

MICHAEL RUSZCZYNSKI ■ DAVID SAMPSON ● JOLY BRAGA SANTOS ■ L ALO SCHIFRIN ● FLORENT SCHMITT◆

GARY SCHOCKER ◆ ROBERT SCHUMANN ● JOSÉ SEREBRIER ● ROGER SESSIONS ▲● BRIGHT SHENG ■

ROBERTO SIERRA ▲●■ BEDŘICH SMETANA ■ ROBERT STARER ● TŌRU TAKEMITSU ■ EINO TAMBERG ◆ TAN DUN ◆

AUGUSTA READ THOMAS ● JOAN TOWER ■ JOSEPH TURRIN ● ERKKI-SVEN TÜÜR ◆ GEORGE WALKER ▲● ◆ ■

BEN WEBER ● PETER WESTERGAARD ● FR ANCES WHITE ● K ATE WHITLEY ◆ ELLEN TAAFE ZWILICH ▲■

“It was an honor to be in the hall for

ANTHONY TOMMASINI, THE NEW YORK TIMES, 2012

the astonishing performance”

56 THE NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY

CHAPTER 10

JÄRVI AND LACOMBE 2003–2016

The job of a CEO of a major orchestra is intense, multifaceted and all-consuming. And with an orchestra like the NJSO, add to that the constant and often exhausting travel around the state.

In 2002, with a settled musician’s union contract, a happy music director, a new showpiece concert hall, successful fundraising campaign and a committed board of directors, Larry Tamburri intense years

Larry Tamburri breathed a sigh of relief after 10

Yet the relief Czech Republic a relatively new Zdenek Macal for him to return the country’s the job of an orchestra gear, as a search committee is formed to find the perfect person director’s podium.

him to return to his homeland to conduct the national orchestra. That’s when

Jacques Lacombe led the orchestra in an acclaimed “Spring For Music” performance at Carnegie Hall in May 2012.

By the summer of 2002, Tamburri found himself at Tanglewood in Massachusetts with one of the most challenging and exciting moments in his career. He had arranged a meeting with Estonian-American conductor Neeme Järvi to see if he might be interested in the New Jersey position. Järvi, practically a household name in the world of classical music, had at the time amassed a discography of more than 350 recordings with, among others, the Scottish National Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Suisse Romande Orchestra and Detroit Symphony Orchestra; and he was ending his music director tenure in Detroit and moving to New York City.

When the announcement was made that Järvi was taking on the music directorship in New Jersey, the music industry took special notice. It was one of those instances in which proximity to the world’s greatest musical city worked to great advantage for the NJSO—the new concert hall in Newark and the Golden Age Collection were further enticements for this veteran conductor.

Like Max Rudolf years before, Järvi had international stature and was well beyond the time of proving himself. He hadn’t even required a grand concert program for his NJSO audition, and he enthusiastically accepted the invitation to conduct the Young Artists Auditions program in 2003.

Not all music directors are also talented at orchestra-building, but Järvi was widely admired in that regard. He had won credit for bringing the Detroit Symphony Orchestra back to firm footing and international acclaim, following years of multimillion dollar deficits, declining audiences and low musician morale.

Järvi referred to his move to New Jersey as something of a homecoming, as he and his family’s first residences, after immigrating to the US from Estonia, were in Rumson and Red Bank. He was keen to have the kind of success experienced in Detroit, and jumped into the life of the NJSO with energy and enthusiasm.

Neeme Järvi was practically a household name in the classical music world when he joined the NJSO as music director.

The Parsonnet Legacy

The Parsonnet name will always be associated with devotion to the New Jersey Symphony. Dr. Eugene Parsonnet, an amateur violinist, was a steadfast friend of the orchestra and a board member. His wife, Rose Parsonnet, was an active volunteer. Their son, renowned heart surgeon Dr. Victor Parsonnet, was appointed to the board in 1986. Victor’s love and support of the orchestra—as a loyal subscriber, board member, board chairman and now chairman emeritus— are well known and much admired in New Jersey’s arts community. How best to describe Victor Parsonnet’s history with the NJSO?—in his own words.

“Music has been a major part of my life. My mother was a musician and ran a music school behind Lincoln Park in Newark. My father was a doctor and also a musician. He played the fiddle and had a quartet called the Haftons, named because between the four of them, they weighed a half a ton. I grew up with music in the house all the time.

“My father also led the board of the symphony. After concerts, my parents often invited the soloists and members of the orchestra to our house for parties. I’d mill around with them. I remember Kenny Schermerhorn standing on his head.

“There’s one experience I’ll never forget. My mother was a good friend with the British pianist Dame Myra Hess. I was her page-turner at a matinee concert at Carnegie Hall. I was scared to death that I’d miss a page, or toss the music on the floor or bang my head on the piano. Once I did miss and she quickly turned the page and kept going. Once, she was playing an interminable Schubert sonata at a matinee. I was feeling sleepy,

“I’ve done a lot of things practicing medicine; relationship with the musicians and the New Jersey Symphony. It was a privilege to get to know them. It’s a thrill to watch these virtuosos work together to create music under a conductor. Many don’t have the opportunity to do what I did. I love the orchestra. I couldn’t have had a better life.”

Excerpts from interview with Lisa Winkler in 2019

the musicians. I invited people to my

so I took a walk during intermission. I guess I was still sleepy, because I fell asleep on stage, and she had to turn the pages. I woke when the applause started.

“When my father died, I was asked to fill his spot on the board. I became chair in 1991 and served in that capacity for 17 years. I didn’t understand the orchestra at all when I joined. It took a while to learn. When you watch an orchestra play, you don’t relate to the individuals, you relate to the whole group. I started the other way around by getting to know the musicians as people. There had been a lot of tension between the board, the staff and

ways, I was jealous of them. They could play music that most, and certainly not I, could never play. They’re playing the most beautiful music in the world. Each could perform as a soloist, yet they choose to do what they do because they like the experience of performing together. To me they were a family. I felt a great responsibility to treat them the same way I did my patients—to take care of them like a family.

“The orchestra gave me a wonderful gift. They invited me to play the piano with them in May 2008, and selected some Mozart. I’d never played on a concert grand before or sat on stage at NJPAC. It was terrifying! I remember Principal Flutist Bart Feller looking at me, skeptical, and then realizing I could really play. I was startled by the sound the piano could make. Neeme Järvi was the conductor. He would conduct with his eyebrows and with subtle movements of his shoulders. When he looked at me, it felt like my stomach was being pulled out. He said, ‘play out, play out’.”

Dr. Victor Parsonnet, renowned music lover and heart surgeon

Audiences and critics took notice. “One didn’t need a voltage meter at last night’s New Jersey Symphony Orchestra concert to judge how the musical electricity jumped when the group got its hands on a fresh, inspiring piece of music,” commented The Star-Ledger’s music critic Bradley Bamberger.

Järvi’s first two seasons introduced New Jerseyans to music by Estonian compatriots Arvo Pärt, Bohuslav Martinů and Eduard Tubin. Northern European composers cropped up frequently in his programming—with both well-known and rarely performed music by Grieg, Sibelius, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Johan Svendsen, Erkki-Sven Tüür and Carl Nielsen. Järvi charmed New Jersey audiences with the European tradition of the orchestra encores, which could be anything from Sibelius’ lush Andante festivo for strings to Frank Meacham’s popular march American Patrol

The innovative Winter Festivals begun in the Macal years continued under Järvi with a “Northern Lights” festival, Mozart festival, belle epoque French music festival and “Coming to America” festival which included Dvořák’s ”New World” Symphony and music by American immigrant composers Bartók, Hindemith

and Stravinsky. Järvi continued to promote performing and commissioning contemporary music, and also programmed copious amounts of classic repertoire—all Haydn’s London symphonies, all Beethoven’s piano concerti and symphonies—which contributed significantly to increasing NJSO’s subscription base.

Thanks to the continuing efforts of the Symphony, generations of New Jersey children have been introduced to symphonic music. However, in the absence of ticket income, support for education programs depends completely on government support, and the generosity of foundations and corporations.

As the 2006-08 recession deepened, the NJSO’s commitment to music education received a much-needed boost from the New Jersey Department of Education, with an unprecedented $2 million, two-year grant.

Another major financial boost at a critical time came from the 2008 sale of the Symphony’s prized Golden Age Collection of historic instruments. The new owners, New York investors who were amateur violinists, generously offered the New Jersey players continued use of the instruments for a five-year period. The sadness of losing

ownership of the prized instruments was made more tolerable by newly acquired organizational stability. “After all that has happened, the orchestra is in a better position now than it was in 2003,” NJSO CEO André Gremillet commented when the sale was announced publicly. “We’re debt-free for the first time in 11 years.”

Neeme Järvi, ever energetic a conductor on the stage as well as in the recording studio, became chief conductor of the Resedentie Orchestra of the Hague in 2005. Following his resignation as NJSO music director in 2009, he began spending more time in Europe and Estonia, where he has presented master classes with the Neeme Järvi Summer Academy, and now with the Järvi Academy of the Pärnu Music Festival. He has also been a keen observer of the success of his two conductor sons, Paavo and Kristjan, and his flutist daughter, Maarika.

Board Chairman Emeritus Victor Parsonnet said that while each of the previous music directors he knew took the orchestra forward, “the biggest leap—in the music and in connection with the audience— came with Neeme.”

Carl Orff’s explosive oratorio Carmina Burana proved to be an excellent repertoire selection by Jacques Lacombe in his audition for the NJSO’s 12th music director. The Star Ledger’s Bradley Bamberger pronounced Lacombe a musician’s conductor—“blessed with a rare memory, he worked without a score, maximizing his eye contact with the orchestra and chorus, the intimacy aurally apparent.”

Working with Neeme Järvi, who stayed on as conductor laureate and artistic advisor,

preparations were made for Lacombe’s first season, 2010–11. The French Canadian’s innovative approach to programming was evident in his multi-season Winter Festival, “Man & Nature: Exploring the Elements in Music,” with Handel’s Water Music, Debussy’s La Mer, Elgar’s Sea Pictures and newer works by Edward T. Cone, Tan Dun and Tobias Picker featuring in the Water Festival. Subsequent festivals were themed around Fire and Earth, with Lacombe commenting “the idea behind the ‘Man & Nature’ Winter Festivals

is to connect what we do on the concert stage to our daily lives, using nature and the environment as a link … I’m very pleased with … how we in the concert hall were able to reflect on our world, on the beauty of nature and how important it is to treat it well … in four seasons we have included many groups from our communities in the Winter Festival— theater companies, choirs, environmental organizations.”

With the sparkling showcase of NJPAC’s Prudential Hall and its proximity to New York, the administration had determined that annual performances at Carnegie Hall, an expensive tradition for many years, were no longer a priority. After the orchestra’s six-year absence from NYC stages, President and CEO André Gremillet was thrilled to receive an invitation for what would be the orchestra’s 22nd performance at Carnegie Hall, this time as participant in the 2012 Spring for Music Festival. An unconventional program of music by Varèse, Weill and Busoni, with Canadian Marc-André Hamelin as soloist in Busoni’s massive piano concerto, earned Lacombe and the NJSO excellent reviews from the often hard-edged New York music critics.

The NJSO presented summer Amadeus Festivals from 1995–2000 at di erent venues statewide; this performance took place at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills.

Embracing the Music of Our Time

It’s easy to forget that the “great composers”—say Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler and Wagner—were contemporary composers in their day, with their new music occasionally scorned by critics and audiences. Thankfully many conductors and musicians ignored the critics and eagerly presented music of their contemporaries.

From the earliest days of the New Jersey Symphony as The Montclair Orchestra, the ensemble has performed and premiered contemporary works. It could be the lighthearted music of Percy Grainger, a friend of Philip James, or the complex music of Roger Sessions. In the rich musical culture of New Jersey, it’s an imperative to engage with contemporary composers.

Those composers can be very close to home, as is the case with orchestra violinist Darryl Kubian, who keeps busy as a composer of concert and film music. In 2008 the New Jersey Symphony premiered Kubian’s 3-2-1 Concerto for Electronic and Acoustic Violin and Orchestra, dedicated to Neeme Järvi and Concertmaster Eric Wyrick. The late George Walker, longtime New Jersey resident and 1996 Pulitzer Prize winner, had his commissioned work, Pageant and Proclamation, performed for the opening night of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in 1997.

The New Jersey Symphony’s list of world, US and New Jersey premieres by contemporary composers is exhaustive, and includes music by Thomas Adès, Edward T. Cone, John Harbison, Libby Larsen, Wynton Marsalis and Augusta Read Thomas.

composers. Cone, a major donor and friend of the NJSO, had been a distinguished and influential professor of music history, theory and composition at Princeton University for many years. Institute concerts have been annually broadcast on WQXR.

that this tradition continues. Throughout the season audiences will hear contemporary music, including commissioned new works by Kubian, Chen Yi, Steven Mackey, Wynton Marsalis and Resident Artistic Catalyst Daniel Bernard Roumain.

CHAPTER 12

THE ZHANG PHENOMENON 2016–PRESENT

If ever there was a breath of fresh air to waft over the New Jersey Symphony, it came in the person of the young Chinese American Xian Zhang, who first worked with the musicians as guest conductor in 2010.

Zhang had already made a big impression in the US, where she served as assistant and then associate conductor to the New York Philharmonic from 2005 to 2009. Yet, as she recently noted, it took her moving from New York to Italy to take up the music director role at the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi before she received her first invitation for a trip across the Hudson River to conduct in 2010. She was 37 years old.

64 THE NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY

“… her innate musicality and ability to communicate intention with clarity invested every gesture. Nothing seemed extraneous or glossed over, even as her whole body seemed to contract and release with explosive energy.”

RONNI REICH, THE STAR LEDGER, 2015

The invitations kept coming, as Zhang appeared as guest conductor again in 2012 and in 2015, the year that it seemed a foregone conclusion that she would be chosen as the Symphony’s 13th music director. “Zhang once again proved a thrilling leader who has already established a strong rapport with the orchestra,” wrote Ronni Reich in The Star-Ledger that year. “… her innate musicality and ability to communicate intention with clarity invested every gesture. Nothing seemed extraneous or glossed over, even as her whole body seemed to contract and release with explosive energy.”

Not since the Hugh Wolff days had New Jersey audiences experienced such youthful energy on the podium. In performance after performance, Zhang has clearly demonstrated what is considered the greatest conducting talent—to deliver moving and insightful performances that call attention to the drama in the music, not the drama on the podium. “Ms. Zhang’s conducting gestures were grand and sweeping in the Britten and kinetic in the Turnage, but a listener never had the feeling

that she was engaging in showmanship for its own sake,” wrote The New York Times’ Allan Kozinn after Zhang conducted the New York Philharmonic in 2005.

Zhang has made a distinct mark on the profile and success of the New Jersey Symphony. With her contract recently renewed through 2028, she spoke proudly of having coached her musicians to create a fuller, richer sound. With that sound, the musicians have explored much of the standard orchestra repertoire while also delving into music written by a diverse group of contemporary composers—including Maria Schneider, Aaron Jay Kernis, Conrad Tao, Anna Clyne, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Kate Whitley, Tan Dun and Chen Yi. She has also conducted Symphony premieres of important works by Florence Price, Clara Schumann and Alexander Scriabin.

Born in 1973 in the coastal city of Dandong, China, Zhang was raised in a very musical family. Her piano studies began on an instrument handmade by her father, and she went on to earn degrees from Beijing’s Central

Expanding Our Audience to the World

Phonograph recordings (invented in Thomas Edison’s West Orange, NJ, workshop) were still fairly novel in 1922, and, as far as we know, the New Jersey Symphony didn’t attempt its first recording until 1941, when founder Russell Kingman’s composition Let Your Light So Shine was made available on a 78 disc, with proceeds used to assist the war effort in Britain.

Fifty years then passed before the orchestra made its way into commercial recording, with Hugh Wolff conducting music by John Harbison and Ezra Laderman. Recording sessions were frequent during the Macal years, with works of Dvořák, Glière and Mussorgsky appearing on the Delos International label and earning significant critical acclaim, including a Grammy Award.

Sound recordings are one way to spread the New Jersey Symphony’s music to the wider world, but equally important have been radio and television programs. More than 10 PBS television specials have contributed to the growth of the orchestra’s reputation,

Dwarfing recordings, television and radio broadcasts is the explosion of music available on the internet. The New Jersey Symphony now has a large worldwide audience via its innovative video archive, with the recent foray into programs especially designed for pandemic times. More than 500 videos are available on the orchestra’s YouTube channel, with no subscription fees required.

How Samuel Antek would be pleased to experience the symphony-produced video of Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra! Animated drawings interweave with performance segments, each explaining the different orchestra sections and instruments.

The Emmy Award-winning TRANSCEND, a contemplative, at times moody concert film produced by DreamPlay Films, offers music by Mahler, Roumain, Dvořák, Still and others, filmed in 2020 with socially distanced, masked performers at NJPAC, and including footage of scenes in and around Newark. On the other end of the spectrum, one can experience Parking Garage Tuba Practice with Principal Tuba Derek Fenstermacher, now one of the orchestra’s most popular videos.

Despite being unable to perform live during the

From LPs through the internet, the New Jersey Symphony has attained a worldwide audience.

Conservatory of Music and, after moving to the US in 1998, earned her doctorate from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Since her debut at age 19, conducting Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with the China National Opera Orchestra, Zhang has become an international star, and she is cited frequently in national and international media as one of the leading women conductors active today. While this is accurate, she could also be referred to as one of the leading conductors, leaving gender aside. She is principal guest conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and conductor emeritus of Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, and she was previously principal guest conductor of the BBC National

orchestras of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, Minnesota, Montreal and Toronto and opera companies in the UK, US and Italy. Opera is at the core of her musical heart, and she will make her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2024.

Zhang believes that access and inclusion are important values in concert life today, a belief she shares with the New Jersey Symphony’s players, board of trustees and administration. She is pleased with the substantial increase in the number of women conductors now active in what for centuries has been almost an exclusively male profession. She also celebrates the increasing numbers of people of color who are outstanding conductors and

atmosphere and attitude, there is no limit to the number and variety of people who can find joy in the concert hall.

Bringing together Eastern and Western musical cultures, Zhang has given New Jersey Symphony audiences a new way to light the dark days of winter with her Lunar New Year Celebrations. These community events draw on diverse talents of classical and traditional instrumentalists, singers and dancers in a festive, family-friendly atmosphere.

A full house at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center; a summer evening of music in Red Bank, NJ

THE NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY

The orchestra’s biggest challenge in decades arrived at its doorstep in March 2020. With only a few days’ notice, rehearsals and concerts were silenced due to the COVID-19 lockdown. As the musicians and artistic and administrative staff convened virtually to explore what could be done, creative spirit emerged in spades. Instead of playing concerts before a live audience, the orchestra would concentrate on video, and reap a large benefit by reaching thousands of listeners, not just in New Jersey, but globally.

The plan was to engage with talented filmmakers and digital experts to take full advantage of the medium, as opposed to merely presenting performance videos. The results can be accessed on the New Jersey Symphony’s YouTube channel, stocked with offerings including TRANSCEND and EMERGE, New Jersey Symphony concert films produced in 2020 and 2021 with a socially distanced and masked orchestra in an otherwise empty Prudential Hall; a brass quintet playing Poulenc and Sousa on and around the Seaside Heights beach; and a Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf that interweaves animation, narration and orchestra members donning colorful hats and costumes. The players met the lockdown

challenge by offering “couch concerts” from their own homes, deepening the personal connection between musicians and audience.

Debra Biderman, a violinist with the orchestra since 1970, was especially moved by the lockdown virtual performance of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. “Upon hearing our rendition … recorded individually via click track and pieced together digitally, I burst into unexpected and uncontrolled tears. The music was still there, even though life had changed. We had no clue when we would be together again.”

Eighteen months later, the orchestra was together on stage again, and the atmosphere at the season’s opening concerts in October 2021 was pure joy for them and for the thousands hearing music again in real time. “Zhang led an elegant, rich-toned and spirited account of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony,” wrote Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times, following the performance at NJPAC. “The slow movement was especially fine, taken at a true Allegretto pace, steady yet never forceful, restrained yet coursing with inner intensity. It was a long-awaited and rewarding return for an essential orchestra.”

With this 2022–23 centennial season, Xian Zhang is excited to “show and glorify our past.” The season features special celebratory events, former music directors as guest conductors and expanded internet access to the orchestra’s fascinating history and its recordings.

Take a moment to imagine the reaction of Russell Kingman and his fellow founders if they could see how their modest ensemble has evolved into “an essential orchestra.” They would surely agree that in this milestone year it is time for all New Jerseyans to take pride in their great state orchestra.

AFTERWORD: LOOKING TO THE NEXT CENTURY

As the New Jersey Symphony’s first century has been replete with dramatic change and growth, its second century will likely follow suit. Sadly, we cannot know the dreams that Russell Kingman and Philip James and other founders had for their orchestra. But happily, when asked recently what their aspirations were for the second century, President and CEO Gabriel van Aalst and Music Director Xian Zhang had much to reveal.

Xian Zhang, with her recent contract renewal to 2028, is on her way to becoming the New Jersey Symphony’s longest serving music director. Her foremost wish is for her orchestra to have a true home. Zhang envisions a new building that would serve multiple functions— individual and ensemble practice, orchestra and youth orchestra rehearsals, administrative offices, library and special events. While the orchestra would continue performing in theaters throughout the state, the home base

would center around core artistic purposes, and go a long way to deepening connection with the community and contributing to music education in New Jersey. Van Aalst has a similar vision, and referenced two orchestras to emulate: the Los Angeles Philharmonic, particularly with the new Beckmen YOLA Center, and Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony.

The New Jersey Symphony’s new building would be dedicated to the young musicians of New Jersey and be a place where, van Aalst says, “people can gather and come together, joined by the power of live music.”

“… this orchestra just gets stronger and stronger with every setback the world throws at us! I know that the resiliency and creativity of the musicians will lead us splendidly through the next hundred years.”

GABRIEL VAN AALST, 2022

Opening night of the New Jersey Symphony centennial season featured Aaron Copland’s magical Appalachian Spring in a collaboration with Nimbus Dance

A summer home “down the shore” is another vision—perhaps modeled after venues like the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in New York or the Blossom Music Center in Ohio. With a summer home, the orchestra would be able to provide year-round employment for the members and significantly expand audiences with family-friendly programming.

As the country changes, and the world changes, the arts reflect that change when, that is, they stay relevant to their communities. It is essential for New Jersey cultural organizations to be inclusive and equitable, given the increasingly diverse population of the state. The Symphony’s first century clearly illustrates how important this has been. As its second

century commences, diversity, equity and inclusion are more deeply embedded than ever in the orchestra’s mission and service.

Xian Zhang notes that in its first 100 years the orchestra fully integrated women into all its operations, and she is certain that a thoroughly racially and ethnically diverse orchestra will similarly take hold in the second century.

Both Zhang and van Aalst are excited about the expanding repertoire for symphony orchestras. Zhang predicts that within a few decades, about 50 percent of the music performed by the New Jersey Symphony will be composed by women

and people of color, and will be thoroughly embraced by audiences. Citing the orchestra’s final concert of the 2021–22 season as proof of the popularity of new music, van Aalst said, “We presented three newly commissioned works, along with Gershwin, and our audiences went wild with enthusiasm!”

“If we’ve learned anything from the last two years of the pandemic, we’ve learned that much in life is unexpected … but this orchestra is so resilient and flexible,” added van Aalst. “There are many things that will happen in the next hundred years which we can’t predict, but the fact that we are one of the oldest orchestras in the country, and the fact that we have lived through wars, pandemics, market downturns, 9/11, massive social and political change … and yet this orchestra just gets stronger and stronger with every setback the world throws at us! I know that the resiliency and creativity of the musicians will lead us splendidly through the next hundred years.“

About the author/editor: Helen S. Paxton is a former sta member of the New Jersey Symphony. This history expands on an earlier one wri en in 1992 by Sedgwick Clark and Sco Paulin. She is grateful for assistance from Janet Donohue and Bambang Widodo, and from current and former members of the New Jersey Symphony

and administrative sta

artistic

Xian Zhang is commi ed to nurturing the next generation of musicians

THE NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY

ADDENDA

Music Directors 1922–2022Performance Venues (Selected List)

1922–29 Philip James

1929–40 René Pollain

1940–47 Frieder Weissman

1947–58 Samuel Antek

1958–61 Mathys Abas

1962–67 Kenneth Schermerhorn

1967–76 Henry Lewis

1976–77 Max Rudolf (Music Advisor)

1977–83 Thomas Michalak

1983–85 George Manahan (Interim)

1985–92 Hugh Wolff

1992–2003 Zdenek Macal

2003–09 Neeme Järvi

(2003–05 Principal Conductor and Music Director Designate)

2010–16 Jacques Lacombe

(2009–10 Music Director Designate)

2016–Present Xian Zhang

NEW JERSEY

Atlantic City: Convention Center

Elizabeth: Masonic Temple, Ritz Theatre

Englewood: Bergen Performing Arts Center

Holmdel: PNC Bank Arts Center

Jackson: Great Adventure

Jersey City: Liberty State Park

Lakewood: Strand Theater

Madison: Giralda Farms

Millburn: Paper Mill Playhouse

Montclair: Montclair Art Museum, Studer Estate, Unitarian Church

Morristown: Mayo Performing Arts Center, Morris Museum

Newark: Newark Museum of Art.

New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Symphony Hall

New Brunswick: State Theatre

New Jersey

Ocean Grove: The Great Auditorium

Princeton: McCarter Theatre Center

Red Bank: Count Basie Center for the Arts

Short Hills: Congregation B’Nai Jeshurun, the Mall at Short Hills

Stanhope: Waterloo Village

Trenton: Crescent Theatre, War Memorial Colleges and Universities: Bergen Community, Centenary, College of New Jersey, Fairleigh Dickinson, Kean, Middlesex County, Monmouth, Montclair State, New Brunswick, New Jersey City, North Bergen, Ocean County, Princeton, Ramapo, Rider, Rowan, Rutgers-Newark, Rutgers-New

Brunswick, Seton Hall, St. Peter’s, William Paterson

Middle & High Schools: Annandale, Berkeley Heights, Caldwell, Chatham, Cherry Hill, Denville, Glen Ridge, East Brunswick, East Orange, Englewood, Flemington, Hackensack, Irvington, Lawrenceville, Livingston, Maplewood, Metuchen, Millburn, Montclair, North Bergen, North Caldwell, Orange, Parsippany, Randolph, Rutherford, Summit, Washington, West Orange, Westfield, Willingboro

Parks: Bloomfield, Hoboken, Jackson, Jersey City, Madison, Middlesex, Montclair, Mountainside, Newark, Paterson, Pennsauken, Red Bank, Ridgefield Park, Ridgewood, Summit, Westfield, West Windsor

NEW YORK

New York City: Avery Fisher Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn College, Carnegie Hall, MacDowell Club, Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, United Nations

Long Island: Bellmore, Garden City, Huntington, Malverne

White Plains: Westchester County Center

CONNECTICUT

Danbury High School, Newtown High School

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

VIRGINIA

Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, Vienna

IRELAND

Adare Manor, County Limerick; National Concert Hall, Dublin

Musicians Roster

NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY

Xian Zhang, Music Director, The Jaqua Foundation Chair

FIRST VIOLIN

Eric Wyrick, Concertmaster, The Dottie Litwin Brief Chair

Brennan Sweet, Associate Concertmaster, The Elin Heine Mueller Chair

David Southorn, Assistant Concertmaster

Adriana Rosin, Assistant Concertmaster

Naomi Youngstein

James Tsao

Xin Zhao

Darryl Kubian*

SECOND VIOLIN

Francine Storck, Principal, The Dr. Merton

L. Griswold, Jr. Chair

Ming Yang, Acting Assistant Principal

Debra Biderman

Ann Kossakowski

John Connelly

Alexandra Neglia

Héctor Falcón

VIOLIN

Fatima Aaziza

Wendy Y. Chen

Maya Shiraishi

JoAnna Farrer

Minji Kwon*

Bryan Hernandez-Luch

Jesus Saenz+

VIOLA

Frank Foerster, Principal, The Margrit McCrane Chair

Elzbieta Weyman, Assistant Principal

Michael Stewart

Christine Terhune

Martin Andersen

Lucy Corwin

Henry Kao

Brett Deubner

David Blinn

CELLO

Jonathan Spitz, Principal, The MCJ Amelior Foundation Chair, in honor of Barbara Bell Coleman

Nayoung Baek, Assistant Principal

Sarah Seiver

Ted Ackerman

Frances Rowell

Hyewon Kim

Philo Lee*

Max Oppeltz+

BASS

Ha Young Jung, Principal, The Lawrence

J. Tamburri Chair

Alexander Bickard, Assistant Principal

Jonathan Storck

Frank Lomolino

David Rosi

FLUTE

Bart Feller, Principal, The Edda and James Gillen Chair

Kathleen Nester, Assistant Principal

PICCOLO

Kathleen Nester

OBOE

Robert Ingliss, Principal, The Arthur E.

Walters and Marjory S.

Walters Chair

Andrew Adelson

ENGLISH HORN

Andrew Adelson

CLARINET

Pascal Archer, Acting Principal

Andrew Lamy

E-FLAT CLARINET

Andrew Lamy

BASSOON

Robert Wagner, Principal, The Charlotte and Morris Tanenbaum

Chair

Mark Timmerman

HORN

Chris Komer, Principal

Andrea Menousek

Lawrence DiBello

Susan Standley*

TRUMPET

Garth Greenup, Principal, The Amadeus Circle Chair

Anderson Romero, Second Trumpet/ Assistant Principal

David Larson

TROMBONE

Vacant, Principal Vernon Post*

BASS TROMBONE

Vincent Belford

TUBA

Derek Fenstermacher, Principal, The Liss Chair

TIMPANI

Gregory LaRosa, Principal, The Mia and Victor Parsonnet Chair

Percussion

David Fein, Principal

PERSONNEL

Adria Benjamin, Personnel Manager

Naomi Youngstein, Assistant Manager

LIBRARIAN

Erin Vander Wyst, Principal*

Tracy Nguyen

* Leave of absence for the 2022–23 season

+ New Jersey Symphony Colton Fellow for the 2022–23 season

The New Jersey Symphony uses a system of string rotation. In each string section, members are listed in order of seniority. The musicians and librarians employed by the New Jersey Symphony are members of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada.

Terhune Awards

The Terhune Awards honor musicians who have performed with the New Jersey Symphony for 25 years. The awards were established by Anne and Malcom Terhune, in honor of their daughter Christine’s 25 years with the orchestra.

VIOLIN

Debra Biderman

John Connelly

Edward Engel

Susan Gellert

Albin Ifsich

Rebekah Johnson

Ann Kossakowski

Darryl Kubian

Alexandra Neglia

Adriana Rosin

Francine Storck

Brennan Sweet

James Tsao

Naomi Youngstein

Xin Zhao

VIOLA

Martin Andersen

David Blinn

Lucy Corwin

Bre Deubner

Frank Foerster

Henry Kao

Christine Terhune

Toni Thompson

CELLO

Ted Ackerman

Frances Rowell

Sarah Seiver

Jonathan Spitz

Michael Stewart

Myung Wooh

BASS

Paul Harris

Francis Lomolino

David Rosi

Martin Sklar

Norine Stewart

Jonathan Storck

FLUTE

Bart Feller

Kathleen Nester

OBOE

Carolyn Pollak

CLARINET

Karl Herman

Andrew Lamy

BASSOON

Robert Wagner

FRENCH HORN

Lucinda Lewis

Andrea Menousek

Susan Standley

TRUMPET

Garth Greenup

David Larson

TROMBONE

Charles Baker

Vincent Belford

Vernon Post

TUBA

Pasquale Landolfi

HARP

Lise Harman

TIMPANI

Randall Hicks

PERCUSSION

David Fein

Presidents and Chairpersons, Board of Trustees

1928–36 Russell B. Kingman

1936–45 Charles E. Arnott

1945–47 Mrs. Parker O. Griffith

1947–51 F. Stark Newberry

1951–52 Barclay A. Kingman

1952–54 W. Osgood Morgan

1954–58 John H. Basshart

1958–60 Percy Rappaport

1960–63 Paul O. Grammer

1963–65 Clayton D. Grover

1965–70 Henry P. Becton

1970–73 Alan Lowenstein (Chairman 1973–76)

1973–76 Sydney Stevens (Chairman 1977–79)

1976–78 Harold Grotta (Chairman 1979–82)

1978–82 Lowell Broomall

1982–84 Dr. Merton Griswold (Chairman 1984–88)

1984–88 William B. Cater (Richard W. Kixmiller –Vice Chairman 1986–88)

1988–91 Robert C. Waggoner (Richard W. Kixmiller –Chairman 1988–91)

1991–07 Dr. Victor Parsonnet (Chairman) (Chairman Emeritus 2008–)

2008–16 Ruth C. Lipper and Stephen Sichak Jr. (Co-Chairs)

2016–19 Linda Bowden and David Huber (Co-Chairs)

2019–21 Ann Borowiec and Norman Slonaker (Co-Chairs)

2021–22 Ann Borowiec and Eduardo Lara (Co-Chairs)

2022–23 Ann Borowiec and Robert Garrett (Co-Chairs)

Administrative Leadership

1959–61 Nicholas George (General Manager)

1961–65 Adam Pinskar (General Manager)

1966–69 George Platt (General Manager)

1970–71 Joseph Leavitt (General Manager)

1972–74 Edward Blair (Executive Director)

1974–79 Kenneth Meine (Executive Director)

1979–91 John Hyer (Executive Director)

Mar–Sep 1991 Karen Swanson (Interim Executive Director)

1991–2003 Larry Tamburri (Executive Director to President & CEO)

2004–05 Simon Woods (President & CEO)

2005–06 Stephen Sichak Jr. (Interim CEO)

2007–12 André Gremillet (President & CEO)

2012–13 Susan Stucker (Interim President & CEO)

2013–15 James Roe (President & CEO)/Susan Stucker (COO)

2015–16 Susan Stucker (Interim President & CEO)

2016– Gabriel van Aalst (President & CEO)

The New Jersey Symphony extends heartfelt thanks to the thousands of generous donors who have made the music possible for one hundred years.

A Century of Great Music 1922–2022

© 2022 New Jersey Symphony njsymphony.org

Graphic Design: Bambang Widodo

Photography and illustration: Newark Public Library and New Jersey Symphony archives.