Something old, something new: SEISO Masterworks Concerts continue

A swing and a miss in 2016 sent the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra back to its Ottumwa dugout to hatch a new game plan.

It seems a Masterworks concert was no match for the Chicago Cubs playing in the World Series finale. So a father-son duo on the orchestra’s Ottumwa Chapter board pitched a new program that would evolve into the annual Ruth P. Seim Memorial Concert for a Cause, in which area school ensembles are invited to perform during intermission of the orchestra’s spring Masterworks concert in Ottumwa. The school in the spotlight then receives the bulk of that day’s ticket sales.

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This year’s invited guest is the Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont Concert Band, directed by Dezirae Fairchild of Oskaloosa. The band will perform in the 2 p.m. April 27 concert in Ottumwa’s Bridge View Center. The band’s varied program, lasting about 10 minutes, will feature “Defying Gravity” from “Wicked,” “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” and the jazz standard, “In the Mood.”

While the Concert for a Cause is exclusive to Ottumwa, the orchestra’s repertoire also will be presented that weekend in the ensemble’s other “home” venues: 7:30 p.m. April 26 at The Capitol in Burlington and 6:30 p.m. April 27 at The Chapel Auditorium in Mount Pleasant.

Admission is $20 for adults and free for students, to help remove barriers for young people to attend, Music Director Robert McConnell said. He also will lead a free preconcert discussion in each concert hall 45 minutes before the performances.

For tickets and details, go to www.seiso.us/upcomingperformances.

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IN THE BEGINNING

Each Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra region has its own chapter board, and a governing board of officers oversees all three. The orchestra's 2016 concert strikeout turned into a home run for the Ottumwa region.

“My very first concert as president of the Ottumwa board was a disaster,” Steve Campbell said. “We had twice as many people in the orchestra as we had in the audience. The problem was, the Chicago Cubs were in the World Series for the first time in a hundred years. … Everybody was watching the Cubs.”

It wasn’t the first time the orchestra found itself competing for an audience. The incident just highlighted the need to find a way to put more people in the seats.

"We had an outstanding musical organization that was financially solid, and we had patronage. We just had trouble attracting people to our concerts,” Campbell said. “This is a universal problem countrywide with orchestral music. This wasn’t a new problem. We just had to figure out a way to come up with a different idea.”

So he and his son, Isaac Campbell, who played French horn in the symphony and served on the Ottumwa board at the time, sat down over a steak dinner in their Ottumwa home and began brainstorming.

Isaac pointed out they needed to have a cause for a concert, “but the words came out ‘concert for a cause,’ ” Steve said. The name stuck until 2019, when the event was renamed to honor Seim, a much-loved musician, educator and orchestra supporter, who died in 2018 at age 79.

The program launched in 2017, as a benefit for the Ottumwa YMCA. In subsequent years, school and community ensembles have been invited to participate and receive a “substantial” portion of the ticket sales.

“We were not concerned about making money for ourselves,” Campbell said.

Seim’s daughters, Jane Martinez of Cortez, Colo., and Sara Meridith of Omaha, are thrilled that an event so dear to their mother’s heart now bears her name. Both plan to be in the audience for this year’s event.

“It’s a very appropriate remembrance, because she was so very involved in the symphony and the community, and a supporter of music education in general,” Martinez said.

For the student participants, Meridith, a former educator, said: “Hopefully, even at this young age, they understand how important music is, just for your mental health. … Another way to learn math is through music.

“If nothing else, they’ll have the pure enjoyment of sitting there listening to music, whatever kind it may be, (and) the appreciation for the sounds that bring you back to a moment.

“Smells take you back to something. The turkey in the oven at Thanksgiving takes you back to something. The sounds that instruments make, or someone’s singing voice, takes you back to a particular moment or feeling. And for them to be able to learn that and understand it” will stay with them, she said.

EDUCATIONAL MISSION

That underscores how the program’s benefits stretch beyond financial gains. The young performers get to play in a large concert hall and hear a professional orchestra — many for the first time. And their families and community members in the audience get to hear them, thus raising awareness for both organizations.

The Ottumwa Chapter board chooses each year’s spotlight ensemble. Fairchild, director of this year’s chosen band, also plays oboe with the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra and serves on the Ottumwa Chapter board.

“The band is very deserving,” she noted. "Concert band is the foundation for the success in the Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont fine arts department. Our marching band and jazz band programs are known statewide, in part because we have a supportive community, administration, and music booster program. What's reassuring is to know that support for our program goes beyond our school district with organizations like the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra and the Ruth P. Seim Memorial Concert for a Cause — that's the kind of support that keeps the arts alive and healthy across generations."

The student performance initiative taps into one of the orchestra’s main missions — nurturing the next generation of musicians.

Through the years, the orchestra has created student events across southeast Iowa, including a daylong festival for string players; educational outreach and performances in area schools, including recent appearances in Burlington, West Burlington and Fort Madison schools; “KidSymphony” concerts for children and their families; a young artists competition, where the winner gets to perform with the orchestra; and a new children’s choir which performed on the orchestra’s recent Hollydaze concert in Mount Pleasant. Christine Bergan, Ottumwa chapter board president and director of the children's choir said she is pleased to have an ongoing program honoring Seim, who had donated funds for the Concert for a Cause.

“She was a huge influence on children and music in Ottumwa for many decades,” Bergan said.

APRIL MASTERWORKS

In keeping with the orchestra’s 74th season theme of playing something instantly recognizable, as well as newer works by female composers, audiences will hear Rossini’s “William Tell Overture”; Reena Esmail’s Clarinet Concerto, featuring Artist-in-Residence Anoushka Divekar; and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.

“One of the pleasures of music is hearing something that you already know, and so most of the audience will already know a big chunk of the ‘William Tell Overture,’ but they’re going to get two other sections, too, one of which is semi well-known, but the other isn’t that well-known,” McConnell said.

It’s permeated pop culture, from Bugs Bunny, Looney Toons and Mickey Mouse animations to “The Lone Ranger” theme on television and radio.

“It’s fun for people to discover there’s more to this piece — kind of like the 1812 Overture, where there’s more than just cannon shots — so that’s something I personally look forward to putting together.”

He described the clarinet concerto as “really a unique, cool, beautiful piece” that’s only been performed a couple of times. “It’ll be a lot of fun,” he said, and will feature the orchestra’s Artist-in-Residence, clarinetist and educator Anoushka Divekar, an Iowa City native.

McConnell is making a concerted effort to program pieces by female composers, noting they “were cheated for hundreds of years,” by having to write under a pseudonym or their husband’s name, in order to have their pieces performed.

“Many fine (female) composers just didn’t compose for orchestras, so it’s a pleasure having this relatively new concerto and unique music (with) not only a female composer but a female performer.”

Another nod to history comes with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4.

“The Tchaikovsky is what we would typically call a ‘war horse.’ A lot of people will recognize it,” McConnell said, but they won’t necessarily realize “how rare it is for a classical piece to be successful, so it’s usually a masterpiece.”

Out of all of the tens of thousands of works written, a piece like Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony “emerges” over time.

“It’s something special,” he said, adding that each time it’s performed, it changes according to the interpretation by the conductor and performers, unlike a piece of art in a museum, which remains the same.

“A piece of music has to be recreated each time,” he said. “ … One of the really fun things is, a lot of our players and different audience members will know this piece, and it’s fun for them to hear how it’s being presented again and appreciate why this piece became so successful.”

IF YOU GO

What: Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra Masterworks 3

Program: Rossini’s “William Tell Overture”; Reena Esmail’s Clarinet Concerto, featuring Artist-in-Residence Anoushka Divekar; and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4

Burlington: 7:30 p.m. April 26, The Capitol, 211 N. Third St.

Ottumwa: 2 p.m. April 27, Bridge View Center, 102 Church St.

Mt. Pleasant: 6:30 p.m. April 27, Chapel Auditorium, 601 N. Main St.

Tickets:$20 for adults, free for students and children, at the door or online