Oregon East Symphony - History

History

The Oregon East Symphony was created in 1986 by a consortium of local musicians and music lovers who wanted to establish a community orchestra in Pendleton, Oregon. Pendleton, population 17,310, is over 200 miles from the nearest metropolitan area, and the OES quickly became known as the "most remotely situated full symphony orchestra on the planet".

Early on, the organization came to include its own chorale. The orchestra's first music director was Lee Friese, who served in that position for 14 years until resigning in 1999.

In the summer of 1999, the orchestra was at a crossroads. Battered and bruised from the acrimonious parting with their former music director, the board nervously planned a transitional season. They invited five conductors from throughout the region to serve as guest conductors and potential music director candidates. Although it was a nervous moment for the organization, ticket sales set a record high, as did the annual fund drive.

Meanwhile, in nearby La Grande, Oregon, the Grande Ronde Symphony, resident orchestra at Eastern Oregon University, had just appointed Kenneth Woods, conductor as their new music director. Woods was just completing a one-year appointment as assistant conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony, having studied conducting at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. In the Fall of 1999, the OES invited Kenneth Woods to conduct the first half of a planned concert. Woods's performance of Mozart's Paris Symphony instantly made him the front-runner for the open music directorship, and he was appointed as the second music director of the Oregon East Symphony and Chorale in the spring of 2000.

In his first full season, Woods placed an emphasis on inviting guest artists of international stature, expanding the orchestra's repertoire and initiating collaborations with other area performing-arts organizations, culminating in a regional tour of Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the combined forces of the OES and GRSO and five regional choirs. The project became the subject of a TV documentary. At the end of the year, however, the OES's Executive Director Catherine Muller (also the orchestra's principal flutist) resigned. Muller's leadership had been widely credited with managing the difficult transition period so successfully. She was replaced by Cheryl Marier, at that time the president of the board of directors. Marier was also a musician in the orchestra (its principal oboist), and a doctor. Marier essentially left her medical practice to take on the challenge of running the orchestra.

Woods and Marier proved to be a formidable combination – early on they began to expand the organization's youth programs, eventually creating an umbrella project called Playing for Keeps, which became one of the largest and fastest-growing programs of its kind in the Pacific Northwest, eventually comprising two training orchestras, two youth choirs, a summer music camp, a scholarship program for music lessons and a fund to support instrument rental.

Woods' career was rapidly evolving. In the spring of his first full season he was invited by conductor Leonard Slatkin to be one of four conductors selected for a showcase concert with the National Symphony as part of the National Conducting Institute. Woods' work with the NSO was covered in major feature pieces and reviews in the New York Times, Musical America and the Washington Post – suddenly the "most remotely situated orchestra on the planet" was being talked about by the East Coast classical establishment.

Speculation was widespread in 2001-02 that Woods would leave the organization, and in February 2002 he did resign his position as Music Director of the Grande Ronde Symphony and professor at Eastern Oregon University to move to Cardiff, Wales, where his wife, the violinist Suzanne Casey, was based. However, Woods did not leave the Oregon East Symphony. Instead, the orchestra agreed to change from having weekly rehearsals to a more condensed schedule, enabling Woods to commute from the UK.

In these years, the personality of the orchestra began to change significantly. As the orchestra neared its 20th season, many founding members were nearing retirement, and the long decline of music education in the region took its toll. Gradually, the orchestra changed from being a volunteer organization to a mixture of a talented local core who were reinforced in the final rehearsals and concert by freelancers from throughout the region. During this period, one critic hailed the OES as "without doubt, the best rural orchestra in North America."

In celebration of the orchestra's 20th season, Woods programmed Mahler's Symphony no. 2, one of the largest pieces in the orchestral literature. The sheer audacity of mounting such a piece in such a remote location drew curious listeners from throughout the region. In the end, the performance attracted some of the best musicians in the Northwest, and the concert was hailed as a major triumph. The musicians by this point had translated the now famous "best rural orchestra" comment into the now famous moniker "The Best Goddamn Redneck Orchestra on the Planet".

With twenty successful years behind them, and a Mahler symphony under their belts, the organization looked forward with confidence to their 21st, but it proved in many ways the most challenging year in the organization's history. Early on, the orchestra struggled in the final stages of transition to new executive leadership, Marier having returned to medical practice two years earlier. Then, in March 2007, the orchestra made national news for the worst of reasons – a massive fire, started as a result of negligence in the nearby Eagles lodge, consumed the orchestra's Main Street offices, teaching studios, board room and music libraries. Twenty years of carefully marked parts, concert recordings and archives were lost in a matter of hours.

Word of the orchestra's plight spread quickly over the internet, largely through Woods' blog, A view from the podium, and donations poured in from all over the country. In addition to much needed cash, the orchestra also received donations of music from the National Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Oregon Symphony and as far away as Australia and the UK.

The orchestra's misfortune also had one other positive effect – it drew the first nationally known critic, David Stabler of the Oregonian, to Pendleton. The orchestra had planned to conclude the season with Mahler's First Symphony (the performance of the 2nd had been assumed to be a once-in-a-lifetime project, but was such a huge success that the orchestra decide to keep playing Mahler, in Woods' words, "until someone stops us or it stops being fun."), but that project was thrown into doubt by the fire.

In the end, the orchestra decided to go ahead as planned, and Stabler was so impressed by what he saw that he wrote a multi-page feature on the orchestra for the Oregonian. He wrote of the experience "In 20 years of being a music critic, I have never written a story like this...about Pendleton's symphony pulling out all the stops to play Mahler's First Symphony after a devastating fire.... Early into it, I realized it wasn't just about Mahler, but about other things, too: overcoming fear, exhaustion and doubt, finding your musical passion again and the power of belief."

In the fall of 2008, Kenneth Woods announced that the 2008–09 season would be his last as Music Director. Woods will completed his tenure with a farewell concert in October 2009 including Mozart's Symphony no. 31, the first work he conducted with the orchestra 10 years earlier. Mozart's Piano Concerto in A major, K488 and Schumann's Second Symphony.

Seattle based conductor Anthony Spain was appointed to succeed Woods following a two year international search.