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It would be rare to find an amateur musician who hasn't wondered what it would be like to perform with a professional orchestra. So the Utah Symphony Orchestra and its new assistant conductor Vladimir Kulenovic decided to make that dream come true for 51 local musicians, holding the first Pro-Am on Thursday evening at Abravanel Hall.
The idea was brought to the attention of symphony management by principal timpanist George Brown a few years ago, after he read about a similar event started by the Baltimore Symphony. The Utah Symphony hopes to do this every year.
Loosely following Baltimore's pattern, the Utah Symphony selected amateur musicians through an application process to participate in a rehearsal followed by a performance of the final movement from Beethoven's 5th Symphony. Of 112 applicants, 51 were selected, and each sat next to a symphony member, experiencing up close how the pros do it.
A small, invited audience of family members, friends and media were on hand to witness the rehearsal and ensuing brief performance. The entire experience lasted just more than an hour, but in that time, the orchestra coalesced into an intense, precise and musically passionate unit under Kulenovic's guidance.
"It's no different working [with these amateurs]," Kulenovic said after the performance. "We're all brothers," he added with a reference from Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
Pleasant Grove violinist Denise Willey thought about playing professionally upon graduation from the University of Utah, but her life took a different direction as she married and raised six children with her husband, Donell. Her most satisfying musical experiences to that point were playing in the Mormon Youth Symphony and the University of Utah orchestra. She watched from the sideline as her children, all string players, soloed with the Utah Symphony during "Salute to Youth" concerts and played in their "Side-by-Side" invitational concerts.
"Now I get my turn," Willey said on the phone before the concert. "That's why it's so exciting — a really great idea."
Trumpet player and Granite School District music educator Ted Zalkind was also excited for the opportunity to play in the brass section with his brother Larry, who is the symphony's principal trombone. But it was the orchestra's acting principal trumpet Jeffrey Luke who encouraged him to apply. "I admire [Luke's] playing and musicianship and have taken a few lessons from him over the years," said Zalkind, who is also music director and conductor of the Wasatch Community Orchestra.
The symphony's final exultant chords seemed to underscore each amateur's triumphal experience with this event.
Willey seemed to glow after the performance. "Midway into the movement, I had chills, realizing I was playing with the Utah Symphony," she said. "It's something I wanted to do since I was a little girl." —
Utah Symphony's first annual Pro-Am
On Thursday the Utah Symphony played its first Pro-Am dress rehearsal, featuring the Fourth Movement from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. Associate Conductor Vladimir Kulenovic led amateur musicians who were selected to play alongside the orchestra's professional musicians on the stage at Abravanel Hall.