This one’s about conductors, volunteers, and that spider in her hair.

This week, Leah and I did something rare and wonderful – that wasn’t about Adopt an Inmate (gasp!).

We went to the Eugene Symphony’s annual Symphony in the Park at the Cuthbert Amphitheater.

We brought our camp chairs, snacks, and bug spray …
Just kidding. The outdoor venue does have lawn seating, but we’re old and wise enough to opt for the real seats. The lawn was buzzing with young folks and kids dancing under the trees, while the regular seats were filled with people closer to our age bracket (and beyond).

The opener was a marimba band called Jenaguru, and they were phenomenal.

After they finished, stagehands shuffled instruments and stands into place. The symphony musicians wandered onstage in T-shirts. This was less black-tie and more backyard block party. Casually magical.

After Leah and I looked over the program, we tried to spy the newly appointed music director, pictured in the program.

Enter: Alex Prior, selected after a months-long, worldwide search. And wow… I get it. He had barely reached the podium before we were hooked. 

Charming. Young. Warm. Enthusiastic. Joyful. Slightly goofy in the best way. He cracked dad jokes (before they played the theme from E.T., he said something about Spielberg and John Williams playing golf: “One shoots, the other scores”), he introduced each piece with such reverence, telling us to listen for the moon reflecting on the stream, and birds fluttering across the sky … and I heard them, just like he said.

At one point, he asked to see all the kids in the audience. Tiny hands rose up like spring blossoms. We could feel how delighted he was.

Because of his enthusiasm and palpable love for the music, I paid attention to everything. I’d been to the symphony before, but I never left so full of questions.

I watched him, part spellcaster, part shepherd, and started wondering about what a conductor actually does. (What happens if they stop conducting mid-piece? Do the strings just wander off?) I noticed the seating arrangement, and the maestro’s greeting of the first chair violinist when he first walked on stage – it seemed purposeful,  what was that about? I noticed the interplay between sections, and thought about the metaphor of an orchestra.

This what it looks like when people work in concert.

Fortunately for me, my friend Sarah (yes, that Sarah), an experienced musician and lover of all things art, would be able to answer my questions. So I called her.

She explained the seating arrangement, and about Prior’s greeting of the first chair violinist, also known as the concertmaster, and that if the conductor got distracted or vanished, all the musicians would look to him or her (her, in this case) for direction.

“We’d have to listen very closely to each other. Anticipate each other’s breaths and exhale together. It requires democracy. You have to listen back, quote each other, and be in conversation”

Much like Wynton Marsalis’ idea of jazz as democratic discourse.

That’s how volunteers work.
How families survive grief.
How you hold space for someone in prison.
You breathe together.
And you play together.

Some of us are brass. Some of us are bassoons. A few of us are definitely cymbal crash energy. And it works.

🎻 Oh, and about that spider.

I had noticed a lovely older couple sitting a few rows in front of us. He had his arm around her and gave her a gentle squeeze now and then. She had this beautiful silver hair, styled just so.

Halfway through The Moldau, something caught my eye.
Her hair was … moving.
It was a spider.

He was thriving. Traipsing. Scaling. Rappelling. I watched in horror-delight as this little dude was rehearsing Spider-Man: The Musical, swinging from strand to strand like a Cirque du Soleil acrobat.

I was *frozen. Do I say something?
The audience was rapt, listening for all the things.
What if I scared her and she shrieked?
What if she was the type to absolutely lose it over a spider?
I said nothing.
Eventually, he descended to her shoulder… and then (I hope?) to the chair and grass beyond.

I went to Sarah about the musical questions, but for this, I turn to you:

🕷️ What would you have done?

If you were the person sitting behind her, do you try to help? Or keep the peace?
And if you were the one with a spider crawling around in your hair…
Would you want someone to tell you?

Let us know. Seriously. This is your audience participation moment.

🗣️ I’ll be watching the comment section (scroll allll the way down below this post).

• I was frozen in more ways than one.
  

Want to Go Down a Few Rabbit Holes?

I’m not handing you every link. Some of these rabbit holes you’ll have to dig for yourself. Consider it part of the symphony: listen closely, follow the notes, and see where they takes you.

🎥 Watch:

• Maestro (2023) – about Leonard Bernstein
• The Glenn Gould performance with Bernstein – the one where the conductor disavowed the soloist’s tempo… and still led the show
• Bernstein conducting from the piano – yes, that’s a thing

🎻 Listen:

• The Moldau by Bedřich Smetana – the piece with the glinting moonlight
• Victor Wooten – legendary bassist, whose camp teaches music through the lens of nature and community
• Wynton Marsalis on jazz as democracy – beautiful NPR segments on listening, quoting, and improvising in dialogue

📖 Read:

• The Moldau – Explained – an overview of the piece’s river-inspired journey
• The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten – part philosophy, part funk, part magic
• Articles about Alex Prior, like this one about his work with the Edmonton Symphony
• Musical Chairs: Why Orchestras Sit The Way They Do

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