The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: Today is Labor Day — a great time to remember all the anonymous people behind the scenes who make concerts happen and who bring us the beauty and music we love.

By Jacob Stockinger

Today is Labor Day, Sept. 1, 2014.

To The Ear, the holiday seems a great occasion and a very appropriate time to remember all the people behind the scenes — and behind the performers — who make music happen.

That is especially true because the regular concert season is about to start, and once again these unseen people will help bring us beauty. And beauty doesn’t just happen. It takes hard work.

We usually don’t know or recognize their names, even when those names are given to us in  program credits.

So let us today praise the technicians and the stagehands (below) , the office staffers and the business managers, the publicity people and the development experts, the government and private sponsors and donors, and even the box office ticket-sellers and the ushers who all support the musicians and the music we so love.

I am thinking of some people with whom I could not write this blog or ever attend a lot of concerts. There are many, many more than the ones I will name. But high on my list are: Katherine Esposito (below top), who is the concert manager for the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music; Teri Venker (below middle), who is the marketing director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra; and Sue Ellen Maguire (below bottom), who is the marketing director of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.

I recently came across something I wrote and posted about this before, about 2-1/2 years ago. The occasion was NOT Labor Day, but a spring memorial service for Ann Miller Chastain (below), who headed marketing for the Madison Symphony Orchestra before she died of breast cancer. She specialized in developing a loyal student audience, and she worked hard but charmingly for her success.

But I think what I said then about Ann Miller also reflects on a lot of other people.

After all, it takes a lot more than the performers, the musicians — who, to be sure, are also hard-working — to put on concerts. And that is a wise lesson to remember today, on the day that traditionally serves as the dividing line between the summer season and the start of the regular concert season in the fall.

So here is a link:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/classical-music-news-let-us-now-praise-all-the-invisible-people-behind-the-scenes-who-make-concerts-and-culture-possible/

Happy Labor Day to all those who labor to bring us the great classical music and the beauty we love!