eNotes :: Telling Our Story! 😍

March 2022 eNotes

Dear Friend,

Happy March -- what luck we have had this past month with so many exciting plans and opportunities to share what’s coming up! In February, our Young Artists Competition continued the time-honored tradition of recognizing talented youth from ages 8 to 18. Our heartiest congratulations go to: Nathanial Zhang (Grand Prize winner), Haruki Murata (1^st place Div. I), Sarah Son (1^st place Div. II), Sophie Nguyen (2^nd place Div. II), Vivian Zhu (3^rd place Div. II), Rudy Mahajan (1^st place Div. III), and Benjamin Jiang (UOP Orchestral Camp Scholarship). Nathanial will be invited to perform with the Auburn Symphony at the 2022/2023 Family Concert. In addition, all these champions will perform their winning pieces at a recital to be filmed on March 13th and soon accessible on our website. Special thanks to the judges this year: Maestro Peter Jaffe, concertmaster Chase Spruill, and orchestra member Faythe Vollrath.

If you were able to attend our February 27th concert, you were likely swept away by the energy and skill we enjoyed from Maestro Scott Seaton. As our guest conductor, Scott concluded the third audition in our Finalist Showcase Series. Concertgoers have already received emails with links to two surveys (one focusing on this concert and one allowing comparison of the three concerts for those who attended all three). Surveys will remain open through March 6th. Don’t miss your chance to share your opinions. We are so humbly grateful for the spirited performances at all three finalist concerts. We are at a pivotal moment in our history and our future. The decision of the Board of Directors will be approached with much deep thought, candor, and feedback from many so that next month we will introduce our fourth Music Director and Conductor as we prepare to roll into the 35th season of the Auburn Symphony!

Speaking of preparations underway—April 3rd is a momentous day as we return to the Blue Goose Event Center in Loomis for our 9th annual Gala … our major fundraiser of the year and our first time back in person since 2019! Sponsorships are available now with a deadline of March 11th, so click here or call our office for sponsorship details. Ticket information will be available soon; keep watching your e-mailbox for more details about this fun-filled and exciting evening. We have a limited number of seats this year so don't hesitate! We anticipate making a major announcement that night, and the theme is “Our Future is Bright!” (Of course!)

As you can tell, we are so proud of our progress and accomplishments. We love telling our story as ambassadors of this unique gem of a community orchestra nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada for over thirty years. When we could not perform during the 2020 season, we created an hour-long documentary about a particularly unusual accomplishment for a small community orchestra. “Auburn Symphony: Scaling the Heights” is a poignant story that begins with the tragic loss of our beloved Maestro Michael Goodwin and culminates with the orchestra taking on a huge challenge rarely performed by any orchestra. That’s what makes this story so special!

This month, we are excited to announce that our documentary will be broadcast through our local PBS KVIE channel 6 on ViewFinder. It’s been edited to fit the half-hour television spot and will reach the local PBS audience of 2 million households—so spread the word! The first airing is set for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 30th, then again on April 1st at 4 p.m., April 2nd at 7:30 a.m. and April 3rd at 6:30 p.m. - click here to view the KVIE Programming Guide. (See the website for additional times on KVIE2 cable.)

We could not have completed this project without our documentary producers and sponsors, so huge thanks to Neva Kesselring and Gerald Rico, Arts Council of Placer County, The City of Auburn, Visit Placer, and the Placer Business Alliance! (A special shout-out to former Auburn Symphony Director Glenn Garabedian who opened the KVIE “door” for us!)

As luck would have it, when the KVIE opportunity came our way, we had the perfect expert to turn to—Tommy Merry of Tommy Merry Productions. Tommy has been our videographer for the past seven years and fittingly, he is our March “behind the scenes” spotlight. Tommy and Sharon Merry moved to Auburn from the Bay Area because they fell in love with the beautiful surroundings, hiking trails and fresh air.

Music is Tommy’s lifelong passion. He plays guitar, keyboard, and bass, and is a member of several rock bands. He has produced his own albums and written deconstructed arrangements in a wide range of genres (country, orchestral, horror, even women’s floor gymnastics for the Olympics!). He has a longtime reverence for “the math of Baroque music,” using the scientifically-documented value for helping our brain organize thoughts when tutoring his niece.

Oddly enough, he came to us at the Auburn Symphony through a totally unusual connection … Tommy calls it “one of life’s weird lessons”! Years before, he met Tim Anderson in a film course. Coincidentally, soon after he and Sharon moved to Auburn, they were walking across the Target parking lot and heard a friendly shout-out. The conversation that followed is the stuff of miracles (in my book!). Tim was leaving the area and wanted to find a reliable videographer to transition his clients. Tommy Merry Productions soon entered a new realm of working with non-profits, a delight but sometimes a “double-edged sword”! Tommy’s pursuit of video production is only one side of his genius. He previously worked as a webmaster developing new technologies bringing audio and video together, a job that included extensive international travel before the dot-com bubble burst. We are now the lucky recipients of his wealth of experience with music and a digital interface.

Tommy was already visualizing a compelling story when he approached Peter Jaffe a few years ago with the idea of creating a film documenting an inside view of a maestro’s intense and solitary preparation for a symphonic concert. He was therefore more than ready to step up when approached to discuss the concept of a documentary about the Auburn Symphony story continuing where “The Birth of an Orchestra” ended. (For history buffs, click here to see our 25th anniversary documentary.) In a true spirit of collaboration, Tommy was able to enhance his film with vintage Michael Goodwin footage received from Tim, on-stage camera work by musicians Dave Lauder and Mike Isom, and audio editing work by our principal trumpet player, Victor Pietrzak.

This is the backstory of the hour-long “Scaling the Heights,” but Tommy’s story gets even richer as we progress to the follow-up PBS project. Serious editing was required to reduce the hour-plus film to fit a 26-minute spot with a much wider audience than our Auburn Symphony family. In Tommy’s mind, it was clearly not a matter of simply hitting the chopping block. He delved into the original script and focused on the musical symbolism of the journey, the subtext parallels of music, heart and our universal journey in life. He carefully studied the interviews in the original documentary, choosing those words that helped create the shape of the visual story.

We are indeed blessed that Tommy ran across Tim in that parking lot. Today, we are celebrating our Auburn Symphony story thanks to the visual genius of our friend at Tommy Merry Productions. In his words, Tommy believes “music is profound, and we fall in love with music the way we fall in love with people!” (Well said, and thank you for everything, Tommy.)

It promises to be a very busy month ahead and we embrace it wholeheartedly. Put your sunglasses on for next month’s exciting news … our future is truly bright!