Pagosa Springs Rotary Club.jpg)
Clap your hands rhythmically twice . . . then three times . . . then continuously, Thomas Heuser instructed. The audience complied.
That is conducting, he said, surprising us with the information that we had “played” Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and illustrating the point by humming the melody as the audience repeated its newly learned feat of musical prodigiality.
In an appearance before a rapt Rotary audience of unsurpassed dynamism, informativeness and outright entertainment, Heuser wowed all with his enthusiasm for music and dedication to our regional symphony.
The San Juan Symphony splits its performances between Durango and Farmington, with occasional forays to other regional venues. It stages an annual subscription series of concerts, as well as a handful of special performances (such as the “Nutcracker” at Christmas time). Its musicians are professionals, Heuser said, and come from throughout the region (some as far away as Lubbock, Texas).
As conductor, Heuser recounted it’s his job to shape the performance, and to draw energy into the hall from performers and audience alike. With the audience and performers fully engaged, a musical performance becomes “a beautiful thing,” he said.
It takes a year, he added, for a conductor fully to learn a piece of music, which requires understanding of why the composer wrote the music in a particular way, the objective being pursued, and what matters to its best achievement in a performance.
Heuser recounted his own musical odyssey, which brought him to the San Jaun Smphony as the fourth musical director in its 32 year history, after a childhood in St. Louis, Mo. Many stops along the path were made for education, and for work in different positions, including a stint as the Music Director of the Idaho Falls Symphony. Heuser said he and his wife (a violinist in the symphony) moved to the Four Corners region from San Francisco two years ago.
“I go where the music takes me,” he said, “and look at where it took me.” Heuser exclaimed his enthusiasm at being in our area, with which he said he had little previous familiarity, especially as a youth in St. Louis.
The Symphony has two remaining subscription concerts in its 2017-18 season: Latin Nights in February 2018 (the afternoon of the 18th in Durango), and a Leonard Bernstein Centennial Concert in April (the evening of the 7th in Durango).
Heuser referred to Bernstein, the composer of immensely popular musicals including “West Side Story,” as the “greatest American musician of the 20th Century,” He added, however, that well-known as he was, Bernstein may have been somewhat under-appreciated for his talent as a musician, since he was even better known as a conductor than as a composer.
In addition to the two remaining subscription concerts, the Nutcracker Ballet is being performed by the Symphony with the Santa Barbara Ballet in Durango December 8-10.
All Durango performances are staged in the Community Concert Hall, at Ft. Lewis College. For information and San Juan Symphony tickets, go to www.sanjuansymphony.org.