Rogue Valley Symphony Orchestra

President
Roy Lindsay

Vice President
Vi Brown

Secretary
Mary O'Bryan

Treasurer
Sue Case

Board of Directors

Charles Brown
Marlene Brown
Carroll Coombs
Sarah Coombs
Catherine Dennerlein
Shawn Hogan
Arthur Kelly
Bruce Lewsladder
Connie Lewsladder
Camille Lindsay
Annette Roe
Ross Roe
Dennis Stanley
John Taylor
Joy Taylor
Paulena Verzeano
Jackie Walden
Ruth Wood

Free Student Ticket Voucher

Before each Symphony Series you may download the current Connecting With The Classics voucher here.

Mark you calendars for the annual FOS Italian Night dinner at the Masonic Lodge – Saturday, April 7, 2012

Friends of the Symphony is the support organization for the Rogue Valley Symphony in Grants Pass and Josephine County. The board of FOS is committed to increasing awareness, attendance and support for RVSO in our community.

We are delighted to welcome you to the inaugural FOS web page. Through this site FOS will provide regular updates on the activities of the Rogue Valley Symphony. FOS has an active program of engaging the community with RVSO and each month we will offer information about one of the many programs by which we are Connecting Grants Pass with the Classics.

If you would like to join the FOS team please contact Roy Lindsay 541-479-8997.

The Great Symphonic Connection and the Muses

By Jacqueline Walden, Ph.D., Anthropology
Board Member of Friends of the Symphony

"Connecting With The Classics", described in a previous web page, is the grander theme of the 2011-2012 FOS season. When I think of the word 'connecting', I imagine an equation that bonds two entities. With the current theme, FOS endeavors to link the community to the classics. The community consists of all people in the Rogue Valley that, through numerous programs and offerings, become the audiences in theatres and schools. On the other side of the equation, the classics consist of an orchestra and conductor who present symphonies, concertos, early music, contemporary music, soloists, music we all know and love, and new pieces that broaden our perspectives.

How important is this bond of symphony and audience? Consider an older question that has conflicted philosophers for a long time: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If an instrument is played when there is no one to hear it, is there the sound of music? The metaphysical answer is 'no' because the meaning of sound is something that one hears. This is a circular argument but it suggests that an orchestra does not create music if it has no audience. Both are integral to the existence of music.

A new subtheme, "Connecting With The Muses" has been evolving this season. FOS has begun inviting the Rogue Valley art community, so rich in art, sculpture, dance, etc., into the Performing Arts Center lobby. Instead of Outreach, I call it Intake.

Wait. The reader is asking if he or she read "Muses?" That word must be a typo. Maybe she means "music." Sounds like "music." If it's not a typo, then what does it mean? Well you may ask. It is not a word commonly used anymore.

On the other hand, I just saw a recently-made movie with well known actors entitled, The Muse. The protagonist called herself a muse and inspired a blocked screenwriter to write again, and a cookie maker to start a business (think Mrs. Fields). Then, like a muse on steroids, she went and bought a movie company and became a movie mogul. It turned out that the muse was really a woman with multiple personalities, a now discredited disorder. Muses also appear in the movies, Xanadu and Disney's Hercules.

Music as a meaning for muse, however, is not too far off. The word Muse is derived from the Greek mousa which means music. Although I came up with the idea of Muses as a theme, in order to write about it, I needed to dig out my dictionary and Wikipedia.

From Greek mythology, we learn that Zeus, the Greek Ruler of Gods, 2700 years ago, fathered nine daughters who collectively became the Muses, each one endowed with a different ability. They were the source of knowledge in poetic lyrics and mythology. They inspired creation, creativity, and genius in the arts and crafts, dance, music, poetry, literature, and others. Like a catalyst that changes the nature and behavior of a chemical, but stays unchanged itself, the Muses can inspire a writer to write, or a baker to go to market, but must remain a muse, not a movie mogul.

The concept of memory also relates to the muses' ability to inspire. Their mother was Mnemosyne, which comes from the Greek word for memory. Early tribal societies and civilizations did not have Wikipedia in which to store knowledge, nor digitized social networks to spread messages. Instead they had to depend on memory to transmit information and messages. For example, they had to remember how many smoke signals to warn about saber-toothed tigers in the area, how many beats of the Taiko drum to call to war instead of plant the crops, hieroglyphics on tombs, stele, or rocks to record the number of camels sold, cave art, and oral storytelling. Even today we see the use of memory in music, theatre, poetry readings, singing, and Toastmasters.

Let's return to the muses in the lobby. Fortunately, today we can make the lobby look like a mini-Florence, Italy with a panoply of muse creations. OK, I'm over-reaching this theme. But paintings by local artists have graciously decorated the lobby before this season. Now, each concert will display a different muse creation from the community. It will be located in one area of the lobby, and identified by large sign. In other words, the display is now more institutionalized, which seems to be the nature of things.

The first concert this season featured nine historical instruments from the last few hundred years. Some were copies recently crafted. Several had beautiful decorations, one (The Serpent) was strangely shaped and looked impossible to play but wasn't, as one musician/exhibitor demonstrated. After the concert, several members of the Xgeneration took photos of the exhibitors playing their instruments. Students also asked what sounded like very complicated musical questions. Their interest demonstrated to me that the Great Symphonic Connection will live into the future.

The second concert display was a wire sculpture of an elephant playing a violin. She needed a title, so as Curator of The Lobby Museum, I dubbed her Ellie, The Musical Mammoth. Can a wire sculpture and a steel violin symbolize a strong, long-lasting symphonic tradition? Well, we have a great orchestra and conductor. We have a great community with an appetite for the melodious sounds of music. And we have engaged the nine muses to inspire all of us. Yes, there is reason to believe that we have an enduring Great Symphonic Connection.