Elgin Symphony’s Hanson leaves major legacy

アメリカで又ひとりの指揮者，Hansonが37年間も勤めてレベルを挙げてきたオーケストラのMusic Director を引退するそうです．まだ65歳だといいますが，これからは家族との生活を大事にしたいといっています．

突然の退任だったので，だいぶ憶測も話題になったのですが，本人は2010～2011シーズンの最終公演，チャイコフスキーの「悲愴」の終演で発表した儀礼的ステートメント以上には語ろうとしないといわれます．

ＥｌｇｉｎはIllinoi州にあり，Chicago とさほど離れていませんが，元々はアマチュア・レベルだったElgin Symphony を今日のレベルに引き上げたのは，Hanson の功績によるところが大きいといわれています．

今週までに後任を決めるのは難しいでしょうから，何人かの指揮者を客演させて，2012~2013年シーズンから委ねるということになると予想されています．

あとは，どうぞご自由にご渉猟下さい．

Elgin Symphony’s Hanson leaves major legacy, but says he’s ‘not in sync with current direction’

By Dave Gathman [e-mail] June 25, 2011 4:44PM

< style="padding: 2px; color: #ff3300; font-size: 10px; display: inline; background-color: #f1f1f1">Updated: June 25, 2011 10:16PM

ELGIN — Before longtime Music Director Robert Hanson announced his immediate retirement to a surprised Elgin Symphony Orchestra board recently, Hanson had been at or near the top of the ESO for 37 years as the orchestra evolved from a college-affiliated amateur group to arguably the most respected professional orchestra in Illinois besides the Chicago Symphony.

Yet at the end, he apparently departed bearing some resentment about how those directors are envisioning the orchestra’s next chapter.

Contacted last week at his Highland Park home, Hanson said he and his wife, Linda, have “decided it would be best for the players in the ESO if I make no further statements” about why he decided to retire. But he did agree to make a copy of his June 16 comments to the board available.

“I assure you I am not dead or dying, and I will tell you that my resignation was not forced,” Hanson said. “It was a decision made over the past year by me and my family.”

When he announced his departure to the board, he heaped praise upon the ensemble’s musicians and said he welcomed retirement as a chance to spend more time with his family while he is still healthy. He turns 65 in August.

But in that same statement, he also noted that “the past several years have been difficult. The board majority and administration are forging new directions for our organization. You know I am not in sync or in agreement with the current direction.

“As you move forward with your plans, remember that a professional orchestra is a delicate and vulnerable organism. Be careful to cherish this precious orchestra and protect it with your hearts and souls.”

“For 37 years, I have been blessed with the richest musical life any conductor could imagine,” Hanson told the board. “Last weekend, our incredible musicians played one of the greatest and most convincing performances of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathetique’ Symphony and Rachmaninoff’s ‘Third Piano Concerto’ I have ever heard. It was inspiring to receive standing ovations at every concert. Last weekend was the pinnacle of my career because the orchestra set a new standard of performance.”

A mystery

Bert Crossland of West Dundee, an educational publisher who is president-elect of the ESO board, said Hanson’s dissatisfaction remains a mystery to him.

“Within any organization, there are always different visions, different focuses,” Crossland said. “But in my years on the board, I have never experienced an incident where the board said, ‘We want to do this’ and Bob said, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ ”

“I can tell you that Year 62 (the 2011-12 season) is going to look very much like Year 61,” Crossland said. “There aren’t going to be any announcements that we’re going to get rid of the string section or something. Our regular classics and pops series will continue; and our educational programs, our school concerts and our community outreaches will all continue.”

Current ESO President Jerry Cain, who also is president of Judson University, was on a trip to Puerto Rico this past week and could not be reached for comment. But according to one published report, Cain said last weekend that he, too, was surprised to hear Hanson had been unhappy.

According to that report, Cain said the only possible conflict of philosophy he could think of was that the ESO management has been making plans to rent out the orchestra to private organizations for parties.

But Hanson told The Courier-News that “renting out the ESO for Christmas parties had nothing to do with my resignation.”

The orchestra, and fear that it could move out of town, also have been mentioned often in city of Elgin proposals to replace the Hemmens Cultural Center, the ESO’s home base, with a larger Elgin-area theater. Crossland said he was involved in some studies of that possibility several years ago, and most board members favored the idea. But the idea seems to have died and hasn’t even been discussed much by the city or orchestra board for more than a year, so it’s unlikely that was the source of disagreement, Crossland said,

Cain said in a prepared statement that “without a doubt, Robert Hanson has been instrumental in bringing the ESO to the prominence and stature it enjoys today. A few words of thanks are simply not enough for all that he has accomplished.”

Pinch hitters

The June 10-12 programs with Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff were the orchestra’s final programs for 2010-11. Next season begins with a matinee concert on Sept. 23.

“The staff has already begun to recruit guest conductors for the coming season while we do an international search for a new director,” Crossland said. “In 2011-12, it will be all guest conductors. Our associate conductor, Stephen Squires, and our educational coordinator, Randy Swiggum, already have been scheduled to lead some of the concerts, and there might be opportunities for them to pick up some more conducting assignments. But I would expect it will be 2012-13 before we have a new music director in place.”

“The Elgin Symphony has a name among orchestra people around the world, so there will be many people interested in the position,” Crossland said.

“Finding guest conductors for next season will be no problem,” Hanson told the board in his farewell. “You have 90 days’ notice and the enviable reputation of this great orchestra. Don’t forget, you still have two excellent conductors on staff: Stephen Squires and Randal Swiggum.”

A famous mentor

The choice of a successor was more clear-cut when Hanson landed the job in 1985. The holder of a doctoral degree in music composition from Northwestern University, he was hired as ESO’s associate conductor in 1974. The 28-year-old became the protege of Margaret Hillis, who was then ESO’s music director and already was nationally famous in classical-music circles for her work with the Chicago Symphony and its chorus.

As Hillis aged and devoted more and more of her energies outside Elgin, Hanson was named co-music director with her in 1983 and music director two years later.

Hanson was named 2001 and 2009 Conductor of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras. Yet he was un-stuffy enough to interview a robot on stage, or to pose in a firefighter’s helmet or a “Phantom of the Opera” mask for a fundraiser. During his era with the baton, the ESO became known for its “pops” concerts that reach out to less-classically-minded listeners, with music from such sources as John Philip Sousa, Broadway and Hollywood.

The symphony was founded by Elgin Community College music teacher Doug Steensland in 1950 as an amateur ensemble affiliated with the college. Hillis became music director in 1971.

During Hanson’s first year at the helm, the ESO converted from an amateur group to the Chicago suburbs’ first paid, professional orchestra. ESO spokeswoman Heidi Zwart Healy said it now has 68 musicians and a yearly budget of almost $3 million. It performs more than 60 concerts a year attended by more than 50,000 people.

Healy said the ESO also reaches about 20,000 children, teachers, families and young musicians per year through a variety of participatory music programs.

The symphony was named Orchestra of the Year an unprecedented three times by the Illinois Council of Orchestras.

Hanson also has composed music. Perhaps most memorable was a full-length oratorio based on the story of Hiawatha that was commissioned by the Elgin Choral Union.

During the Hanson era, the ESO began performing some concerts in Schaumburg and developed a series of family concerts. Hanson also directed the choral union for awhile and founded the Elgin Area Youth Orchestra, the Elgin Community College Conservatory and the Elgin Community College Institute for the Performing Arts.

Crossland said that when he realized Hanson was quitting, “My first reaction was shock. But the next emotion was gratitude. For 37 years, this man was in a front-row seat — in many respects in the driver’s seat — for the great growth we have experienced. You don’t find many people in any field who have been doing the same job for 37 years. We had to know that Bob Hanson wasn’t going to be around forever.”

“Every time I have stepped onto the podium, I have felt privileged, humbled, and awed by the talent of these incredible musicians,” Hanson said in his farewell. “They brought an unprecedented musical experience to our region.

“It was the best of times.”