A Conversation with Sandi Sigurdson (Part One)

As we know, Sandi Sigurdson is stepping down after fifteen years as Executive Director of the symphony. She kindly agreed to be interviewed for the blog. I arrived at her house on a Saturday morning. "Are you hungry?" she asked almost as soon as I was in the door. "I had some coffee and yogurt earlier," I replied. "So, you're probably still hungry." I was. "I thought so. Let's have some breakfast!" Sandi said excitedly. "Do you like poached or scrambled eggs? Aren't these little potatoes cute? Do you like salsa? This is the best salsa in the world. I'll make more coffee." Properly fed and caffeinated, we got down to business.

David Hennessee: Tell me about your early life. Did you want to run a symphony when you grew up?

Sandi Sigurdson: (laughs) I’m the oldest of five -- five children born in six years. I was born in British Columbia, but spent my childhood in San Diego and later Los Angeles – Inglewood. When I was a kid, across the alley from us lived an older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Large. They were about sixty, and I thought of them as “ancient.” Mrs. Large died and Mr. Large moved away, but before he did he gave me his portable record player and enormous collection of 78s – almost all classical… and Mario Lanza.

DH: Lanza was sort of the “Il Divo” or Andrea Bocelli of the time, right?

SS: Exactly. I loved organizing this huge collection of records, and I especially fell in love with Tchaikoivsky’s “Swan Lake.” I knew the story and put together performances with my siblings as ballerinas, and myself as the star, of course. We’d charge my parents and anyone else five cents to watch the performance.

DH: So even as a little kid you were organizing and managing performers?

SS: I guess I was! Also, unlike my mother who never sat down, my best friend’s mother listened to jazz and classical in the evenings, and I just thought that was the most refined, civilized thing to do. We were fortunate to live close to several major performance venues. We’d go to the Pilgrimage Theater (now the Ford Theater) and to Hollywood Bowl for jazz and Fourth of July concerts. We’d get seats in the nosebleed section ($2 per ticket – can you believe that!), pick up some KFC and watch the LA Phil. There’s something about Tchaikovsky and fireworks.

DH: We’ve spoken before about how Tchaikovsky is a great “starter” composer – repetitive, hummable melodies, no dissonance… I used to listen to the symphonies and ballets a lot as a kid.

SS: Me too – with Tchaikosky the emotions are so big and in-your-face, and that’s where you’re at as a kid and a teenager. These days though, I like big-old-ballsy, complex music: Mahler and Metallica! And Barber!

DH: So you went to a lot of concerts in LA?

SS: Yes, especially after two performance spaces came on the scene: The LA Music Center and the Forum (did I hear that it was getting torn down?). When these opened, there was a ton of buzz; everyone wanted to go, me included. I was like twelve or thirteen and saw the Supremes with Little Stevie Wonder (who’s the same age as me), BB King… Grand Funk Railroad was my first rock concert. They were so loud, I couldn’t hear for days! OH! And I loved your blog entry last year, David, that included Petula Clark video. I saw her and met her family at the Coconut Grove. It was great to have this easy access to music and have these venues as part of your life. It’s my hope that we do something similar at the San Luis Obispo Symphony, make music an easy part of people’s lives through the concerts in the PAC, the free dress rehearsals, the Pops concerts at Avila Beach, and the chamber music concerts around the county.

DH: Do you still make it to LA for concerts?

SS: I do – my husband (Steve McGrath), myself, and our friends the Spatafores are subscribers to the LA Opera. On performance days we leave SLO at 8am, eat lunch on the plaza at the Music Center, and then the performance starts at 2pm. It’s over about 6 or 7pm, then we drive back. Lately we’ve been getting in to Wagner and the Ring Cycle. I’m coming late to opera, and it’s a revelation. It’s like the first time you eat Thai food – you never knew that food could have flavor combinations like that. Our first LA Opera was an amazing production of Tannhauser. The set was all in red and there were people simulating sex onstage, and the virginal and holy heroine was all in white – it’s hard to explain how powerful it was, but five hours later I was on the edge of my seat, sobbing at the beauty and nobility of this woman. I felt the same way about the Pacific Repertory Opera’s production of “Madama Butterfly” last spring. The music, the modern sensibility, the exploration of racism – I was dazzled.

DH: What other performances stand out in memory?

SS: As I got older, if I wanted to see a concert but couldn’t find anyone to go with me, I’d just go by myself. I saw Dave Brubeck [legendary jazz pianist], and in college I got to see Aaron Copland conduct at the University of Colorado at Boulder (Go Buffs!). I’ll never forget that; I was on the first row just mesmerized by this tall, thin man conducting with a lifetime of experience behind him.

DH: How did you wind up in San Luis Obispo?

SS: I worked for fifteen years in Southern California in hotel and restaurant management. After Steve and I married, we made a conscious decision to “live the SLO life.” I worked part-time at a doctor’s office in Cambria, and in 1988 we bought a house in SLO (twenty-one years later we’re still in this house. They’ll have to take us out feet first.) I began looking for a job and heard that the SLO Symphony was looking for a secretary. I got the job and worked for two years under Cricket Handler, who was Executive Director at the time. Then she stepped down, and I took over as Interim Director. I didn’t think I’d do it for very long. Then they did a big search; I applied and got the job.

DH: What changed your mind about doing the job on more permanent basis?

SS: I liked the musicians! I also saw that I could do valuable work for the organization. Mike was building this talented orchestra with strong community ties and Cricket had laid a strong foundation for the group to become more professional in terms of policies and organization. Together they launched the music education program. I saw a lot of potential and room for growth, and wanted to be part of that.

DH: The orchestra certainly has grown over the years. Why do you think that is?

SS: Well, Mike Nowak is a brilliant programmer and nurturing conductor and our musicians are so talented and dedicated. We owe a lot of it to the completion of the Performing Arts Center in 1996. It was a big, sexy draw for audiences when it opened. The first year we played there, we were sold-out on subscriptions. There were hundreds of people we just couldn’t seat, the demand was so high. A lot of groups using the PAC experienced the same demand, so they doubled or even tripled their programming. There was some pressure for us to add Friday night or Saturday afternoon shows. It’s much, much to Mike's credit that he said: no, let’s see how it goes and not respond to this immediate pressure. Then demand tapered off, and some of those other groups faced half-empty halls, but our demand stayed high. Then in 1999 tech stocks crashed. All of a sudden no one had any money, but we rode that out, and were able to continue serving the community and even add the free dress rehearsals. We continued to sell out the Saturday evening concerts. We expanded music education and merged with the Youth Symphony, which was an investment in the future. Kathleen Lenski [Grammy-award winning violinist] moved to the area in 2000, and with her we started the chamber music concerts, bringing what we do to different parts of the county.

DH: How did your job change as the orchestra grew?

SS: I used to do a lot of the bookkeeping and payroll, record keeping and such. There was a wonderful and oh-so-curmudgeonly volunteer to help with that, Alan Goldsmith, a Jewish-Austrian expatriate who actually experienced Kristallnacht. Can you believe that? When I first started it was me and part-time secretary and a part-time music education/marketing coordinator. Think about it: those are two very different jobs. Now we have a brilliant staff of seven, lead by Patty Thayer, dozens of volunteers, and of course the hard-working Board of Directors. A big change from the old days. We used to do it all: take out the trash, vacuum… oh! A great example of that: when we played in Pismo at the Church of the Nazarene, I’d hand-write Row A, Row B, Row C, ect. on adhesive file folder labels and put them on the carpet to show people which row their seats were in!

DH: You’re open about not having formal musical training. What’s that been like, working for an orchestra?

SS: Well, I did sing in high school and still love to sing…. badly. Former Music Ed Director Jaime Lewis and I are going to LA Master Chorale in December for a sing-along Messiah. But sometimes in discussions with my more musical executive director peers, I don’t get all the classical references or jokes. I’m so lucky that Mike has always very been kind and patient about schooling me. He’s never been anything but willing to educate me about classical music. For example, I simply didn’t know there was a trombone and a bass trombone.

DH: Does a bass trombone burn longer?

SS: Bad joke! But I get it!

G is for Getting There

Woody Allen once said that “90% of life is just showing up.” For musicians, it’s sometimes challenging to show up at a rehearsal or performance at the right place and time. Fortunate are those who land positions with major orchestras. They plant themselves in a city, do that job, and take in some students, maybe work at a local university. On the other hand, to make ends meet, freelance musicians often must play in several groups in different locations and do lots of occasional work (weddings, parties, etc.). This career path can involve a great deal of driving. For many, being a “freeway flyer” is the price one must pay for a career in music.

And there is a price: check out this blog entry that details the efforts of a musician to cobble together a living wage. The pay for four positions (with gas and car maintenance figured in) comes to $11/hour, $18,000 a year.

http://doublebassblog.org/2007/10/this-crazy-business-part-5-driving-for-dollars-–-life-as-a-classical-music-bottom-feeder.html

Our own conductor, Mike Nowak, describes how some three-hour jobs in LA pay $150. Adding in his drive time from Los Osos, that’s about $15/hour – before taxes, gas, and food.

Then there can be snags in “getting there.” You never know what will happen. Violist Karen Loewi Jones relates one of her “horror stories of LA commuting”:

“I always had to drive myself because nobody lived in Long Beach. I was driving to an LA Opera matinee on a Sunday and figured there would be no traffic, but still gave myself plenty of time. Hit the Hollywood freeway and bam...dead stop. I didn't think I was going to make it. Got to the pit, dripping in sweat, literally 30 seconds before the downbeat.”

Mike Nowak agrees that you never know what will happen in LA: traffic, earthquakes, mudslides, car trouble. He describes how, currently, for a 10am session, he leaves around 8:15am to arrive at the studio around 9am, with time to warm up and settle in. This extra time also allows a cushion for anything unexpected, since as he says, in LA “you’re just not allowed to be late” or you won’t be asked back.

And then there’s Murphy’s Law. Case in point: in college I played with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, which rehearsed in downtown OKC, an hour away from my home. Some background: I usually have a 5 o’clock shadow because my face is very sensitive. If I try to shave every day my face looks like it’s been attacked by rabid hamsters. This was even more the case when I was 22. Once, in an effort to save money, I switched to cheap disposable razors. Big mistake. It’s like shaving with a butter knife. Before a concert, I shaved with one of these 99 cent wonders, and the result… rabid hamster face. I couldn’t get the bleeding to stop. Running very late, face covered in bits of Kleenex, I did 80 mph all the way to the Civic Center, ran backstage, unpacked, walked quickly onstage, sat down and 10 seconds later played the downbeat of Scheherazade. That was cutting it too close! Currently on concert days I shave around 9am so that by 1pm dress rehearsals, the carnage is under control.

Commuting isn’t all low pay, traffic, and profuse bleeding, however. There can be positive aspects. For example, a while back, Violinist Valarie Koos accidentally shredded her parking pass, so she carpooled with Kaoru Miyanouchi. Valarie obtained a new parking pass, and both she and Kaoru live in SLO, so not much gas money is saved by their carpooling. Still, they found the conversation before and after rehearsals so enjoyable, they continued riding together.

I’ve had some similar experiences. In high school, I played in the Oklahoma Youth Orchestra, and some friends and I would make the hour and forty-five minute drive from Lawton to OKC in the comfort of a trumpet player’s dad’s plush van. We could relax, listen to our Walkmen (remember those?) and talk about whatever 17 year-olds talk about. Moreover, for several years my dad and I drove one-and-a-half hours to my viola teacher’s home. During that time we talked about all sorts of things, and he taught me the ins-and-outs of highway driving.

It was a coming-of-age when I gained enough experience to drive myself. I mostly listened to music. It was during these trips that I learned all the words to West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and Joni Mitchell’s first two albums.

Commuting can also provide time for reflection. Mike Nowak relates that to maximize this opportunity for quiet time, and to minimize stress, for him “a one-day gig [in LA] turns into a three-day project.” He leaves Los Osos the day before, then stays with friends in LA. He works the next day 10am-5pm (or 6pm), then drives to Santa Barbara that night, usually staying in a hotel by the ocean. When driving, he used to listen to talk radio. These days, however, he often works on music in his head, thinking about scores and programming. Sometimes he’ll listen to a ball game on the radio, imagining what it looks like. He doesn’t talk on the phone or listen to music often, except for recordings friends and colleagues have given him of their concert performances and studio recordings. Repertoire can range from standards (for example, Shunske Sato performing Ysaye) or new music, including pieces by contemporary composers. “LA is so noisy,” Mike says, the quiet time in the car, spaced out over a few days, means that he arrives home rested, not hungry or stressed from driving after dark. As he says, “I don’t bring LA home with me.”

Commuting is a fact of life for many in the SLO Symphony since its musicians come from all over the county. We receive a mileage compensation – even people like me who live a stone’s throw from the PAC. However, for musicians who live farther away, drive time can pose a problem on concert days. The dress rehearsal is usually over around 3 pm. By the time one packs up and gets out of the congested parking lots, it can be 3:30. To drive back to Santa Maria, Cambria, San Simeon, or Paso Robles would not only be costly, but only allow a couple of hours of downtime before the concert. To avoid this problem, some musicians stay with friends who live closer to the PAC. For example, violinist Margaret Berrio hosts a number of these “orphans” in her home. Instead of rushing to and from SLO twice in one day, they can relax, have a nap, a nice dinner, and socialize with other musicians.

So while the cliché “Getting there is half the fun,” may be an overstatement, neither does commuting have to be an onerous experience. Perhaps it’s the price we pay to take the most rewarding journey: the musical one.

Please feel free to leave your best-and-worst “getting there” stories in the comments section.

Up next, "I is for Intonation."

DH

Viola jokes:

What's the latest crime wave in New York City? Drive-by viola recitals.

Why do violists leave their violas on the dashboard of their cars?
 So they can park in handicapped zones.