Speeches

Continental Harmony: Music that Builds Community

Speech by Linda L. Hoeschler to the New Century Club, April 2, 2003, St. Paul, MN

In 1998 the American Composers Forum, based in downtown St. Paul, was selected as one of six national organizations to launch millennial arts celebrations in partnership with the White House and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). These millennial projects were nationwide endeavors to involve many people in celebrating this country in the year 2000, expressed through original art works.

In the case of the Forum, our program, called “Continental Harmony” (a lovely name, I think), challenged communities around the nation to identify themes celebrating their history, a current issue or future dreams. A national panel picked the best project for each state, based on originality of idea, variety of coalition members, ability to execute, etc. The local project leaders then selected a composer from a host of applicants recruited by the Forum. The winning composer was in residence over 18 months and wrote a piece of music for the local band, orchestra or chorus (and sometimes all three). During the residency the composer gathered information and inspiration, as well as taught and spoke in local schools and civic institutions.

So how did a nice St. Paul group end up playing in these big leagues, particularly since all the other awardees were located in New York or Washington (Save our Sculptures, the Poetry Project, etc.)? Moreover, why was our project the one selected as the centerpiece presentation for the NEA’s annual meeting in 2000 (converting several Board members and bringing others to tears, by the way), and the subject of an hour-long special on PBS and a new PBS web-site. Also, why is Continental Harmony the repeat focus of talks at national conferences, and why is it still thriving around the nation five years later, with many new communities vying for admission and many veteran localities asking to continue the program with us?

The key to Continental Harmony’s popularity and legacy is that we empower communities to design an art project relevant to their history, their capabilities, their needs. We tell the communities that they know good art, and will know how to select not only a good composer, but also design a creative residency and project. We challenge project initiators to include coalition members who are not part of the usual power circle—minorities, immigrants, non-arts participants. 

And what do they get? They get a great piece of new music for their town or city, but more important, they build a stronger community through the process of participating in Continental Harmony. Ironically, the communities apply for the end product, but all find the process, the residency and community building, the most extraordinary aspect of the program.

And what does the Forum get? Not only unprecedented recognition and appreciation for the role composers can play in building community, but a pride that we have designed a methodology that can serve as a model for all arts organizations—from symphonies to community theater—as to how to become a vital, not peripheral or decorative, part of their locales.

Before I show you a short video about Continental Harmony that illustrates the principles and mechanics of the program, and describe some of the specific successes of this and other American Composer Forum programs, I’d like to describe how we came to design a Continental Harmony.

Composers Stephen Paulus and Randall Davidson began recruiting me to run the Minnesota Composers Forum in the fall of 1990. I had had a 13-year career in corporate management at Dayton Hudson and National Computer Systems, after doing 7 years of free lance arts reviewing, feature writing and editing. But along the way, my husband and I developed a passion for working with artists, particularly composers, whom we commissioned to write new music for various celebrations. In 1990 the Forum was faltering; the prior executive director had stolen large sums of money, and the staff was executing the same 15 year-old programs, much to funders skepticism. As a personal favor to Steve, I finally agreed to come to the Forum, just for a year, to help out.

What I found was a small service organization dedicated to helping composers, but with little thought of relating to the communities. At that time I was on the Jerome Foundation Board and had heard staff discuss the myopic view of the Forum’s programs, and whether the Forum deserved further funding. This sentiment was echoed by other foundations and organizations that I interviewed in my first months on the job in the summer of 1991. 

Having little to lose, we restructured and polished existing programs, and designed some totally new programs within the first two years. Among these experiments were the Faith Partners program and a College Residency program.

The first, Faith Partners, placed composers in an 18 month long residency of 3 Minnesota-area churches/synagogues, writing 6 pieces of shared music. Surprisingly, recruiting the churches and synagogues was quite easy—many of them were looking for ways to invigorate their congregations and to develop working relationships with other faith-based institutions in their community or in another part of the state. However, one of the hallmarks of the program which differentiated it from most other arts programs that export art and artists, was our insistence that the consortia each listen to composers tapes, interview and select the finalists. The Forum would recruit composer applicants, but wouldn’t do the selection.

From my corporate background, I learned that to get, and more important, to keep consumers, they have to make the choice-- in this case the choice of composer. I had no idea this was such a revolutionary idea in the arts, where the usual practice is for an expert panel or organization to put the imprimatur on the “good” art or artists and tour them around.

The Forum’s approach for Faith Partners, takes a lot of time and effort to execute: we have to solicit church and synagogue applicants, listen to their choirs, then match them into a suitable consortium. We then have to recruit and organize composer applicants from our regional members, and then coach the consortia through the selection projects, often trying to convince some of the Faith Partners participants that they really have good ideas and ears, and are more than capable of selecting a quality composer with whom they can work.

The benefit of the Forum’s approach is that, despite the long planning time, our partnerships never fall apart. Because the faith based institutions determine the partnership projects and chose the composer they want, they are committed to making the residency work. And, after all, these alliances don’t last but a year and a half, and we all know that almost anyone can make a marriage last that long!

Another lesson we learned from Faith Partners was that the program was most meaningful to rural churches and to Catholic churches. In the former, having an artist in residence was a big deal in a small town, and since we encouraged the composers to find ways to relate their host churches to the larger community, the composers learn to play a vital entrepreneurial role, and along the way garner widespread recognition that usually eludes them in Twin Cities. The Catholic churches, by the way, often welcomed some high art in settings historically rich, but reduced to guitar singalongs after Vatican II. (I can say this since I was raised Catholic).

At the same time, through the good offices of one of our Board members, we developed a College Residency program for composers. The idea here was that colleges would design an interdisciplinary residency, and composers across the nation would be invited to apply.  Our pilot was at Bemidji State University, where the college wanted a composer to design and execute a project to tie together their Native American population (Bemidji is located between 3 reservations), a Japanese paper exhibit at the College Museum, and their spring lake festival. No small task!

The winning application, by a Boston composer, Andy Vores, proposed several college wide creative activities, culminating in a music theatre performance centered on the retelling of the Orpheus myth through the stories and songs of various cultures: Western classical, Nez Perce Indian, Japanese Noh Drama and African folk tale. The final event, on Mother’s Day 1992, was a fabulous, two hour experience with original poems, music, dances and sets advancing this classic tale. The audience leaped up at the end and gave a standing ovation that went on and on, something almost never seen in new music.

But the most touching aspect of this project was the Dean’s introduction at the dinner preceding the performance. She said, her voice breaking, that in all her years at Bemidji they had never really engaged the large Native American population. The reservation students came to classes, but were not part of the college’s life. But through this residency, she said, Native Americans participated, for the first time, in a college-wide project. Moreover, to the astonishment of the University administration, the reservations had decided to hire several buses to bring residents to the packed performance.

The lesson for the Forum, that informed our other programs, particularly Continental Harmony, was that when all participants have substantial voice, when no culture is better than another, when each group can tell its story, the collaborative possibilities are enormous, far richer, far longer lasting.

Emboldened by the Bemidji experience, plus other residencies at Winona State and St. Thomas, and informed by the success of Faith Partners in rural communities, we decided to call 35 rural festival organizations in Minnesota to see if they would ever want a composer to work with them. To our amazement, everyone signed up. The problem was getting the money to fund this idea.

We finally got some Rockefeller Foundation money in about 1997 to pilot some rural Minnesota composer residencies. We would incorporate the fundamental lessons of Faith Partners and the College program into the design of a new Rural Commissioning Program: a host committee would represent several local institutions, the locality would define the project and pick the composer, and the composer would write for a local ensemble. The pilot projects were in Grand Marais (local ensembles played for inauguration of new hall), Grand Rapids (song cycle for Judy Garland Festival based on her poems) and New Ulm (town song for men’s chorus and band).

During this period NEA asked for ideas from many national organizations for ways to celebrate the millennium in all 50 states. They thought Faith Partners might be a suitable project for us to propose, but I advised them that with the NEA’s precarious funding situation, and the battles over church/state separation, this was not the program with which to lead. I talked with them instead about our new Rural Commissioning Program and they were intrigued.

The conversations with the NEA continued over the next year, and we learned that our idea was one of the dozen or so finalists. We agreed with the NEA that we would include urban underserved as well as rural communities among the applicants to meet their political needs. But we would not budge on letting the communities select the composers from an open application call; the NEA was very skeptical about letting communities do the selection—after all, how could the people in Podunk know what was good music. The NEA also urged us to develop an approved list of composers from which communities could choose one; again we would not compromise our principles, that seemed revolutionary to everyone else but us! 

In June 1998 we launched Continental Harmony with a reception for Bill Ivey, the new NEA chairman. Later that summer we mailed 12,000 applications to mayors, civic organizations and arts institutions around the nation (show poster). They were invited to outline a civic theme—an historical event, a current issue, or future hopes—to celebrate at the time of the millennium. We recommended that the premieres occur on July 4, 2000, so that we could maximize civic pride and publicity. The community applicants also had to outline composer residency activities to integrate this guest artist into their community. Within 6 weeks (despite a way too short timetable) we had 100’s of applications. We were thrilled that our approach was working on a national level.

We then convened a national panel of people who understood both music and community arts, and they selected the best project per state; a few more were recommended projects pending additional funding, which is why we ended up with 58 sites in all.

Late fall we mailed the list of funded sites to 5000 composers around the country. We received over 500 applications to the various sites; composers applied to a specific site or two, sending not only professional material and tapes, but an essay on what they would do to maximize the residency, and how they would approach writing the music. The communities then had about a month to review the materials, and interview the finalists in person or by phone. By March 1999 the partners were picked.

The first premiere was in Grand Forks, in late February, 2000. The project was to develop a choral work to commemorate the massive Red River floods and community rebuilding. Steve Heitzeg, from the Twin Cities, was the composer chosen by the North Dakota committee. As part of his residency he interviewed local folks about their view of the river; many later said that for the first time they could talk about their love, but also fear of their river, their fear that the river might destroy their community again. Steve also worked with school children and the wonderful University of North Dakota art museum. He found an old iron bed, and had the children collect driftwood, shells, flowers and grasses from the river banks that they then tied to this iron “river bed,” along with personal notes and small objects representing the possessions they had lost in the flood.

At the culminating concert, the chorus sang Steve’s touching work, “What the River Says,” that comprised three sections, with the last featuring a ballad about the river. After a lengthy standing ovation, the conductor turned to the audience and had them sing the ballad, whose words were taken from the residents’ interviews. Thunderous clapping was interlaced with tears and embraces. I was hugged by many unknown attendees, in what became a Pentecostal-like healing service. People thanked Steve for expressing their hopes and anxieties in music.

I was astonished, relieved and deeply moved. I knew that Continental Harmony was not just a good project, but that it could do something for these fragile communities that no government aid or social services could do. Continental Harmony was bigger than all of us. 

About that same time the Knight Foundation, another Continental Harmony funder, asked if we’d be willing to have a PBS documentary made of the program, since they thought Continental Harmony represented an extraordinary new model for the arts. Knight engaged our own local Twin Cities Public Television and a NY producer to make a one hour documentary, telling in-depth stories of five sites, with brief clips about 5 more. The documentary, which has been seen in millions of households, first aired in October, 2001; because it so closely followed the events of 9/11 it was had had a long life with its message of hope and healing. An accompanying web site, which I urge you all to visit, was developed primarily for students to learn how a composer works.  

I’d now like to show you a 9 minute tape which we developed from our video footage and from the PBS show, in order to explain the program to communities, composers, and of course, funders. The theme music in the opening and closing segments, by the way, is from the Fitchberg, Massachusetts orchestral performance.

Thank you. I’d like now to explain some of our findings from our assessment of this first round of Continental Harmony, and tell you about some of the current projects. You saw Dr. Patricia Shifferd in the video, the Director of Continental Harmony, whom we hired in June, 1998 to run the program. Pat, who would be with us here today but for elbow surgery from a recent fall at our North Carolina Continental Harmony site (our staff really throws themselves into their work), is a sociologist and anthropologist, and the former dean of Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin. Pat is not only an amazing manager, but is interested in measuring the impact of the arts on community building. When Rockefeller Foundation learned of her expertise, they asked if they could fund us to better document and measure this historic program.

Pat’s multi-part research involved the hiring of some independent measurement contractors so that we could guarantee honest evaluation (I’d be glad to provide more in-depth information on this for those who are interested).  The findings, now contained in a 125-page book, guided us in our fine-tuning the program after the Millennium celebrations, particularly regarding the makeup of the community coalitions, the project leadership, and various residency details. While I certainly don’t have time to list and elucidate the many conclusions of the assessment study, I’d like to talk about the community development aspects of Continental Harmony, for me the most thrilling legacy of this program.

In a nutshell, we learned from Continental Harmony that when you bring people together to celebrate their shared histories, their common values and visions, you often solve many underlying tensions and divisions. Most approaches to community divisiveness involve sitting the parties down and talking about their differing views and goals, then mediating compromise goals and behaviors. It’s a bit like marriage counseling: the airing of your frustrations and disappointments can often reinforce your underlying anger and alienation.

But in Continental Harmony we start by identifying our commonalities and celebrating them. And in the buildup to a final musical performance, a small group’s enthusiasm can sweep up others and translate into community-wide pride; particularly significant was Continental Harmony’s impact on rural youth who said that for the first time they felt a real pride in their home towns.

This invigoration of a locality often leads to solving problems well outside the arts arena, problems such as economic redevelopment, immigrant integration, racial healing, and on and on. And, to our amazement, many of the Continental Harmony coalitions continue, often commissioning their original composer, or venturing into new partnerships with new artists.

I could tell you scores of wonderful stories, but here are just a few. David City Nebraska, whose site coordinator you saw in the video, said that Continental Harmony gave his dying farm community hope they could save it (By the way over half the town attended the premiere, a choral setting of poems written for the occasion). 

In Farmington and Jay, Maine, an area divided ethnically and socio-economically, the French and Anglos were given money to build a new concert hall because a premiere attendee was embarrassed that they had to perform in a high school gym, and the community chorus formed for the project is still performing in both communities.

Fitchberg, Massachusetts wanted an economic revival theme song. The composer wrote a march within an orchestral work, performed numerous times since, celebrating this mill town’s ignored riverfront. Now the mayor is planning to build a band shell on the river banks and the arts are a key part in the town’s revitalization plan; in fact, the Continental Harmony coordinator is in charge of the city’s revitalization task force.

In Grand Forks Steve Heitzeg’s piece has become the community’s anthem. We are again working there to premiere a CH 2 orchestral work, with a residency which partners the surrounding reservations, the local symphony and the museum.

And the Grand Canyon project, a snippet of which you saw on the video, has had extraordinary results in 2000 and beyond. That site’s composer, Native American Brent Michael Davids, a Minneapolis resident, now teaches Arizona reservation children how to compose music (the music is performed to great acclaim, I might add). We would like to expand this concept to the reservation youth in Minnesota, pending funding.

We expect the same community building results with Continental Harmony 2, as we develop projects in 15 to 20 states a year, with ongoing support from the NEA, Rockefeller and Knight Foundations. Some of the most promising projects include Dearborn, Michigan where we have established a partnership with the Arab-American Community Center for Economic and Social Service and the University of Michigan Music Society to support Simon Shaheen, an Arab-American composer.  Shaheen is writing a composition for the opening of a new Arab-American museum.

The Forum plans to nurture this coalition, and to play an even larger role in the reconciliation of Arab and North American cultures.

In California’s Central Valley, generally considered a cultural wasteland, we are working with a Modesto community organization to train youth in the Mariachi tradition; they will perform with a local youth orchestra. In Long Beach, we are helping knit together the Anglo and Hispanic communities with a coalition between the Symphony Orchestra and Museum of Latin American Art. Two composers, one from Pennsylvania, the other from Mexico City, are collaborating on a symphonic work to be performed in both California and Mexico.  

In Minnesota, we are partnering with Abbott Northwestern Hospital to place a composer in residence. This composer would work with the caregivers and doctors, plus residents of the Phillips neighborhood, to write a work for the opening of the new Heart Hospital wing. We believe that this model can be developed into a national program for all medical institutions.

We are also developing a wonderful St. Paul project, “Rondo Harmony,” based on oral histories of this sundered neighborhood. The organizers want this project to provide a rallying point for the rebirth of community institutions and infrastructure along Selby Avenue. “Rondo Harmony”, for which we will be seeking funding, is a pilot of the kind of engagement and trust building the Forum needs to develop as we become, hopefully, a real player in community development.

We all expect the arts to elevate, entertain and, occasionally, enrage us. I hope I have also shown you how the arts can provide a catalyst for building community spirit, energizing the resigned, integrating the forgotten, all the while transcending age, color and religion.

Continental Harmony is but one model for making this a better, more optimistic, more cohesive country. We at the American Composers Forum will continue to do it the old fashioned way, one community at a time. Thank you.

Additional material, from New Yorker, September 2002

Auden, in a pregnant fragment, even glimpsed what may be the only rational theory of art in an open society: art, he writes, “is one of the most powerful means of transforming closed communities into open ones, in moving people from passion to desire.” Instead of inflaming a passion, an incoherent and irrational want, the artists disciplines it to a desire, something exact. He takes a feeling and makes it into a thought—or, at least, a though-through feeling. This is high sounding, but it is plain truth. Why were so many, after 9/11, drawn to Auden’s poems save that reading them helped us to make the overwhelming passions of the time—fear, rage—into specific desires: to have a voice, to affirm a truth, to speak to a friend, to love more wisely. “For art had set in order sense/And feeling an intelligence,/And from its ideal order grew/Our local understanding too.”

Managing Your Career

(or How to Become Self Employed)

by Linda L. Hoeschler, March 13, 2002

·      Reflect on some lessons learned which helped me advance career both within and between organizations

·      Offer these from the viewpoint that we each must assume responsibility for managing our own careers and must be prepared to quickly adapt to changing demands and opportunities

·      With thoughtful analysis of our skills, personal values and work environment, can set some positive goals to manage our jobs and career changes

 1. Pursue Your Passions: Match your activities with your values

·      Before you can develop a satisfying career plan, you must view your career within the context of your entire life

·      Develop parallel lists

1. One listing your values and goals re: family, friends, money, job, health, spiritual, and community

2. List current activities in each category

·      Develop a plan or set of plans to get them in sync. Create a life which reflects your values
 

2. Keep on Training: Consistently work on increasing your assets to improve your marketability and enhance your choices

·      Assess your existing assets or skills

1.     use updated resume

2.     consult industrial psychologist

·      Determine assets needed

1.     Assess your technical skills in your current (or future) profession:  do you know your field in depth; are you on the cutting edge of developments

2.     Grade your portable skills (those good in any industry):

#1 is oral communications (ability to listen and convey information)

writing (computer)

organizational ability; efficiency (for self and others)

finance, human resources., sales, training, computer

other keys: interpersonal, stress management, ability to learn, ability to problem solve

·      Develop a training plan (tailored to how you learn best, e.g. classes, tapes, reading, interviewing, etc.)

1.     Always learn as much as you can from work: training, classes, co-workers, meetings, company literature, task forces

2.     Read

3.     Take outside classes

4.     Volunteer work (right; learn skills; network) 

3. Be a Political Hack: A Smart Career Manager Practices Smart Corporate Politics

Definition of smart politics: Developing support from others (especially those who don’t report to you) so you can do your job well.

Elements of smart politics or recognizing the culture:

·      Peer support: most important factor in job success

1.     Use first 6 months on job to build a network

2.     The ability to work within a group is a skill you must demonstrate in order to get ahead

·      Boss support:  companies often judge you on how you get along with your boss. Factors:

1.     Be loyal; try to understand his/her pressures—not undying respect or blind devotion

2.     Compliment and coach; watch timing

3.     Do 3 most important things (to boss)

4.     Keep informed about your work; pass on helpful information

5.     Pointing out his/her shortcoming highlights your lack of character and good judgment

·      Choose battles carefully (6 silver bullets) 

·      Hire internally; hire better than you; develop a backup(s); keep an up to date inventory of the talent around you

·      Encourage people to be smart; add responsibility and see how they do

·      Correct ‘stereotypes’ about you:

1.     Overweight; techies; MBA; work-family balancer; job hopper; over 40; low-level job holder.

·      Maintain modesty at all times: “It’s only me.”

·      Don’t spread rumors; focus on results and ignore mindless speculation

·      Avoid profanity and control your moods: if you can’t manage your emotions, how can you manage others?

·      Resigning: be positive about employer; don’t threaten it as a job negotiation tool

·      Passed over: learn from it; Fired: handle gracefully 

4: Just do it: Always be a self-starter, work hard, and if blocked expand your power base

·      Companies are looking for people who can handle less supervision but take on more responsibility

·      The best measure of future job success is past performance; companies are looking for people who work hard day in and out, not for the sporadic genius who offers a few flashy performances

·      The ability to perform maintenance activities is particularly important for those with a reputation as start-up, turnaround, or star performers

·      Always work to increase profits—think of the customers’ needs

·      Some caveats while working hard:

1.     Reprioritize your work each day

2.     Don’t work 80 hours a week

3.     Do what you agree to; don’t agree to the impossible

4.     Do well in areas perceived as weak 

If you’re self starting, working hard, but either blocked from promotion or bored,  you can still develop your career by expanding your power base:

·      Create a new job for yourself—get out of middle management

1.     Take on work that needs doing

2.     Create or join task forces with study issues and propose solutions

·      Benefits of this new job creation:

1.     Acquire skills

2.     Increase your value to employer since more knowledgeable, productive, and not pressuring the organization to solve your problems

·      Caveats

1.     Don’t neglect your core job ( and let your boss know)

2.     Be a team player as you expand your territory: this point applies to Lesson 3

5.Take a Flyer: To get out of middle management show leadership, take risks and forget what others think.

·      You want to be recognized as a leader; remember “A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world

·      A leader is a catalyst for thinking and cooperation, in other words, leveraging others 

·      A leader challenges the status quo in order to learn more and discover how to do things better

·      Prepare to be unpopular (sometimes difficult for women)

·      Know thyself and what you can offer

·      Be decisive; don’t dither; solve problems yourself

·      Risk

1.     Present new ideas even if they’re shot down

2.     Tackle hopeless projects; learn to rebound quickly

3.     Be willing to say “it’s my fault,” showing you are not so small minded as to blame others

·      Credit others; toot your horn sparingly

·      Dress for the next job

·      “Keep people happy, exceed expectations and good things will happen.”

6. Jumping Ship: Prepare Yourself for a Career Change (you’ll probably have to at some time) and Know When to Change

Preparation:

·      Keep your resume up to date

1.     Know significant job and career accomplishments and quantify them

2.     Cite obstacles overcome and skills learned

·      Save money

·      Clearly identify those factors you want in next job (values, co-workers, boss, experience, money, peace of mind, etc.)

·      Pay for assessment by industrial psychologist: gets courage up

1.     You can’t be half-hearted in a job search

2.     Be prepared to fail

·      Groom a successor

·      Protect your ego: get personal life in order; since work provides our primary social circle, need to develop other support structures 

1.     Simplify life with rituals, lists and delegation

2.     Watch health and exercise; maintain outside interests; feel good about yourself

3.     Don’t take issues and self too seriously; don’t change jobs if getting divorced

When to consider a job change:

·      Assess if your job has a future:

1.     Is your boss well regarded and moving up?

2.     Do supervisors spend time in developing your skills?

3.     Are you challenged and still learning on the job?

4.     How does your company view you in terms of: comparable pay; acting upon your recommendations; passing over you

5.     Is your company a market leader and in an industry with a future; is it developing new products or resting on its laurels?

·      Are you chronically sick or late?

·      Have you been demoted or asked to take a career counseling course?

Evaluating a new job:

·      How does it meet the key factors you set for next job?

·      Are your values and style similar to that of the CEO and management team?

·      If the new employer has or is downsizing, are they retraining their existing workers? (Cite long term stock trends) 

7. Changing Identity: Becoming a manager can make or break your career, depending on your ability to switch gears

Behaviors that get you to the top (aggressiveness, solo-performance), are often inappropriate. Need to replace them with these three 

·      Set the example for ethics, hard work, sensitivity to employee needs and buffering: do right by the company and by the employee 

·      Provide a simple vision for your staff; set 1-3 goals a year (with employee input as to how to choose and achieve them) 

·      Make stars of your employees:

1.     Choose people better than you

2.     Develop a team by solving problems and developing plans; help them see how their values fit with those of the organization

3.     Manage each employee in the style with he/she needs (director, coach, or delegator)

4.     Give them feedback and help them reach their goals

5.     Show them your appreciation; appreciation is the number 1 employee request

SPCO Talk on Commissioning

By Linda Hoeschler, 5/24/2005

1.    Learned I enjoyed talking to artists as a child: Columbia Concerts reception

2.    First Commissions:

a.    Furniture-George Nakashima

b.    Marian Fry

3.    First Music Commissions:

a.    Paulus in 1980 (had met him and Larsen in 1977-78)

--Quartet written for instruments our children played

--Minnesota Club premiere

--Length determined by his fee (15 min)

b.    Stephen involved us along the way

--selecting and ordering the text for the work

--Would have us to his home to hear how the work was progressing

--By involving us, he taught us how to be patrons (different from the furniture experience). With all future commissions, music and not, he taught us how to be involved appropriately

c.    Certain themes developed with consistency from this first commission:

--a party, a dedication and often a trip (such as)

d.    Next commission: again a Paulus, this time in Santa Fe in 1986 for our 20th anniversary (“marriage not good enough…”)

e.    Then started to commission annually, up to 5 a commissions a year now (dare not tell my husband) 

4.    Next Developments in our commissioning

a.    MCC: 1988: in Germany for a Paulus work and Jack came up with idea of MCC; McNeil/Lehrer story of 1989 we talked about it, so finally launched it in 1990

b.    1990: also started a program with the Schubert Club, to commission a new work for Minnesota artists making their New York debut

--first work: Aaron Kernis for Jorja Fleezanis (dedicated to my Barnard advisor)

c.    1991: went to the Forum; supposed to be temporary, but turned into a 12-year love affair (although stunted my commissioning in some ways)

--here worked with Aaron and partnership with SPCO

d.    SPCO commissions:

--1996: Five Etudes (Debussy); involved the Hills and dedicated to Joseph Micallef. A signed copy of the score, framed first page and party attending it with Aaron speaking to the guests, made it a great occasion

--1998: August Read Thomas: Passions, for James Sewell Ballet and orchestra (MCC)

--1999: Daniel Godfrey—Symphony in Minor (our initiation, as was the A R Thomas piece)

--2005: Jennifer Higdon and an Oboe Concerto for Kathy Greenbank (with MCC)

5.    What is great about commissioning:

a.    High points of commissioning:

--ability to learn from an artist, and attach self to those who create something from nothing,

--investing in an artist and helping them build their careers (we often become lifelong friends and advisors, from Jack helping them out with legal issues, to my working with them to help strategize their careers)

--reviving the repertoire (plus, nothing to curate)

--dedicating a work to an important event or person

--introducing new people to the concept of working with artists of any ilk

--traveling and having a party (England, Norway, Germany—often with MCC)

b.    Some of the negatives: pretty funny now

--radio story

--where the composer’s delay killed the dedicatee!

--chipmunk sound

c.    some interesting themes of commissions we’ve done:

--for a piano we bought for the Schubert Club

--a march to open the new Wabasha Bridge

--giving a university its own theme song

--thanking teachers and professors (twice in the case of Barnard prof!)

--working with Debra Frasier

--being part of the YoYo Ma Silk Road Project

--King’s College Choir: first composer to write for the Xmas eve service

--anniversaries and weddings and memorial services (Jack’s wasting disease!)

6.    Getting Started

a.    easier to start with a performing/presenting organization such as SPCO

--challenge them to involve you, and to promote the work with other orchestras

b.    Use a not for profit as your fiscal agent. An organization such as the Forum, dedicated to supporting composers, can help you with the payment and get you a tax deduction

--can also make suggestions for composers and solicit materials from composers (don’t think that makes for a commitment)

7.    Conclusion

a.    music, once the apotheosis of man’s spirit, is now in danger of numbing our souls, with the wallpaper surround sound world we live in

b.    we need artists to interpret our world, to pique our minds and lift our spirits 

c.    they need your support to do so

d.    together we can produce a legacy of thoughtful and challenging music. It is music, the most evanescent of the arts, that can give us enduring insights and beauty.

Script for Kita McVay’s Songs 

By Linda Hoeschler, May 6, 2009

Introduction

1. Some people believe that our personalities are shaped by a combination of nature vs. nurture.

2. Some are convinced that we merely act out a predestined script.

3. And still others believe that our basic dispositions and subsequent actions result from the position of the stars and planets from the moment of our birth 

I, however, have a somewhat different view. I believe that each of our lives is a Broadway musical, and that the hits songs we hear throughout our lives both influence us and document our actions.

And so, when I was asked to host a toast and roast of Kita, I looked at her biography. I also asked for your ideas on her gifts and missteps—the latter were all too few, I can assure you. Taking this material, I surveyed the songs Kita would have heard as she grew up, starting in the cradle.

I am sure that you’ll agree with me that Kita, as remarkably talented as she is, was surely influenced by the music around her.

So with the help of our own Leslie Ball, accompanied by George Maurer on the piano, here’s a tribute to Kita, with a few teasing remarks, all in song. You’ll notice my license with some of the lyrics, and I hope you’ll enjoy our medley of songs as much as we have in both selecting them, and tailoring the words.

Birth-1950

We begin the Kita story in 1950, in Minneapolis. The year started as a typical year in the post WWII Cold War, with President Truman authorizing the Atomic Energy Commission to continue work on the hydrogen bomb. The Russians shot down an unarmed US Navy plane over the Baltic in April, and that fall a more paranoid Congress passed the Internal Security Act, requiring Communists and totalitarians to register with the Justice Department and forfeit passports. Into that Cold War atmosphere, North Korea invaded the South in June, and we all know how that turned out.

But there were also happier notes, the 64 year old tax on oleomargarine was repealed in 1950 and Ralph Bunche won the Nobel Peace Prize.

And on October 12th, a child was born to Marcel Dale or “Pete” McVay and his wife, Rosemary Margaret, in Minneapolis, Danita Louise. One suspects that the parents may have been expecting a Daniel. Anyway, Danita’s older sister, Marcie, quickly renamed her Kita, and this unusual, lyrical name stuck.

And what were the songs that Kita would have heard while still in the cradle? When I looked at the song charts, it was like reading Kita’s palm, in terms of forecasting many of her future interests and commitments.

After Leslie sings the first two songs tonight, I’ll mention some other hits of 1950 that also seem to fit Kita.

But now for two popular songs of the time: the first forecasts Kita’s love of horseback riding, a sport she began at age 4 at the family farm in Mora, and her love of herding cattle.

The second is from “South Pacific.” Being an infant, Kita didn’t always hear THESE foreign words quite correctly, but you’ll get the drift.

SONGS: “Don’t Fence Me In” and “Bali Hai” (UTS)

Oh, give me land, lots of land, under Mora’s skies above,
Don't fence me in.
Let me lope with the Swedes through the county that I love, (Ya batcha!)
Don't fence me in.
Let me ride Ebony in the evenin' breezes,
Battle with the cattle ‘neath the cottonwood trees,

Send me off to herd ‘em, but I ask you please,
Don't fence ME in.

UTS may call you
Any time, any day
To New Brighton’s seminary
Come to learn, then to stay. 

UTS will whisper
On the wind of the sea
Interim presidente
For a year, or maybe three.

UTS, UTS, UTS!

Thank you Leslie and George, for those terrific renditions.

Now let me mention two other hit songs of the year of Kita’s birth that also predicted some of her proclivities, but that we don’t have time to hear tonight:

“Lavender Blue, Dilly, Dilly”, a rendering of the old English folksong that became a hit for both Burl Ives and Dinah Shore. The first part of the title foretold Kita’s love of the color purple. In fact, in later years, she could be heard singing, “When the Deep Purple Falls, Over Kita’s kitchen walls.” The second part of the Lavender Blue title, “Dilly, Dilly” predicted Kita’s love of dilled produce, and her Minnesota State Fair ribbons for her dilled beans.

1955-1956: Bible School and Dancing School

Kita’s father and her four siblings attended Hennepin Avenue Methodist church, where Kita later taught Sunday School for 20 years. While the church’s fine Sunday school laid the groundwork for a lifelong affiliation with this remarkable institution, I also think that Kita’s cowgirl model, Dale Evans, played a part. In 1955 Dale had a hit song that she wrote and sang: “The Bible Tells Me So.”

At a minimum, this song may have inspired Kita to do more personal reading and exegesis of the Bible, leading her to eventually enroll in UTS for the master’s degree she earned in 1996.

But Kita was not only about spirituality and religion. She was also a fine athlete, and besides horseback riding, and schoolyard sports at Kenwood Elementary School, she started ballet lessons. It was 1956, the year Grace Kelly married, the Andrea Doria sank, and Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey folded its big tent.

And just as one might have predicted, there was a song to match her newfound passion, a lovely, romantic tune from the 1956 Broadway hit, “My Fair Lady.”

SONG: “I Could Have Danced All Night.”

1956: I Could Have Danced All Night (ties to ballet lessons)

I could have danced all night!
I could have danced all night!
And still have begged for more.
I could have spread my wings
And done a thousand things I've never done before.
I'll never know what made it so exciting;
Why all at once My heart took flight.

I only know when I
Began to dance that I

could have danced, danced, danced all night!

1968-1972: Barnard College, Columbia University, NYC

After Kenwood Elementary, Kita attended and graduated from the Northrup School for Girls, now merged with Blake. When it came to college, she chose one noted for its development of strong, independent women, Barnard College—across the street from, yet a feisty part of Columbia University, in New York City.

Of course, Kita didn’t need to look far for female role models. Her mother, Rosemary Margaret Moskalik was a corporate lawyer at Cargill. And when Rosemary and Pete McVay married, they moved into Rosemary’s house near Lake of the Isles.

Kita came to Barnard in 1968, a tumultuous year, both for that campus and for this country: the Tet offensive, assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, SDS occupation of Columbia buildings, the Democratic national convention in Chicago, and the election of Richard Nixon over two giants from Kita’s home state: Humphrey and McCarthy.

About the only light news was the marriage of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy to Aristotle Onassis, and popular entertainment such as “Hair” and “The Graduate.” “Hello Darkness, my old friend” seemed a suitable mantra for this Age of Aquarius.

At Barnard, Kita continued to perform in its fine dance program, and studied hard. She graduated with a history major, Magna cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Are you surprised?

To mark her years in New York, we now offer this lilting popular tune, which premiered slightly after Kita left the Big Apple.

SONG: “New York, New York” 

1968: New York, New York (Barnard)

Start spreading the news, I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it—New York, New York
In silk ballet shoes, I’ll do grand jetes

Through Barnard’s heart and sole, in old New York

I want a big bite of the Apple that’s NYC
Where I can tap dance my way-- through history

These little town blues, are melting away
I'm gonna make a grand new start of it - in old New York
If I can make it there, among the Barnard bears
I’ve got it made - New York, New York.

1972: Return to the Minneaple

After her 1972 graduation, the year of the Munich Olympics, the Watergate scandal, Nixon’s visit to China, and shooting of George Wallace, Kita returned to what might have appeared to New Yorkers as a quieter life in Minnesota. Not for Kita, of course. She began to work at Cargill in the management training program, and soon went to Toledo. During her 15 year career at Cargill she was its first female grain trader and also a merchandising manager.

In 1973 Kita married and now has two accomplished daughters, Elizabeth 28 and Marianna 22.

Besides her impressive professional career, including her work on the executive committee at MinnWest banks, Kita stayed involved with the community. She has served on the boards of Hamline University, Minnesota Dance Theater, the local Barnard chapter, Project for Pride in Living, Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches, and Hennepin Avenue Methodist. I’m sure there were many more commitments, but believe me, Kita leaves no paper trail! (No songs on banking: Pennies from Heaven, the Party’s Over)

And then there is her ongoing commitment to United, a love affair we’ve had with her that seems to have no end. First as student and MA graduate, board member and chair, chair of many committees, interim president, and finally, the well earned title of President.

Just as I’ve learned that Kita publicly shares little information about herself, I’ve also learned that she seems not to have any foibles. When Gretchen emailed the staff, board and faculty for roast ideas, the worse thing anyone could say was that Kita dresses so beautifully, that the rest of us feel like schlumps around her!

And so, Kita, here’s your rather weak roast, in song.

SONG: You’re Just Too Marvelous

You’re just too glamorous, too glamorous for words
Liked glorious, sensational
You’re hardly congregational

It's all too wonderful, I'll never find the words
That say enough, tell enough, I mean they just aren't swell enough.

With your great style, which is so “very, very”
You set the bar for every seminary.
And so we offer you, this tribute you’ve just heard,
To tell you that you're glamorous, too glamorous for words. (repeat last stanza)

FINALE

As a final tribute to Kita, I offer a summary of our toasts to a few of her many superlatives, with new words to a Cole Porter standard. Each of you will get a copy, a souvenir of tonight’s event.

SONG: “You’re the Top”

At words poetic, I'm so pathetic
That I always have found it best,

Instead of getting them off my chest,

To let 'em rest unexpressed,
I hate parading my serenading
As I'll probably miss a bar,
So here’s our dossier

On Kita Mc Vay
To tell you how great
we know you are.

You’re the top!
You’re the Bigelow Chapel
You’re the top!
You’re the Minneapple.
You’re a melody
From a hymnody by Bach.
You’re Martin Luther
The Wesley two-for
You’re our John Knox!

You’ve got wings
Not unlike Moroni
With added bling
On your suits Armani
The Enlightened sage
Of an OT page, Job’s lament
You’re Eden’s garden
Teilhard de Chardin
The Council of Trent!

You’re the top!
You’re a convert’s zeal
You’re the Top!
Billy Graham’s appeal
Mary Baker Eddy’s favorite reading room,
You’re a Luth-rin reunion
You’re the saints communion
You’re our Hans Kung!

You’re a treat
From Sharon Ryan
A bow tie neat
On Ron Vantine
Both Heydinger
And Heiddeger you stun!
You’re Vatican Two
A grant from CUE
You’re Gene Robinson!

You’re the champ
Of lib-ral theology
Let Cruise vamp
For his Scientology
Our fearless leader
Our Reinhold Niebuhr, a toast
To Danita, our own Kita, you’re the most!