WEBVTT 00:00:00.140 --> 00:00:06.007 start off here. Today is friday january 13th 2000 and six and I'm pam 00:00:06.040 --> 00:00:11.217 Stephenson doing the interview. And Manny Garcia is our videographer and 00:00:11.250 --> 00:00:16.697 we are doing a living history video interview for the Arizona State 00:00:16.730 --> 00:00:21.556 University retirees association. And we are at the visitor's information 00:00:21.589 --> 00:00:26.896 center of a issue at rural road and Apache boulevard. And I'd like to have 00:00:26.929 --> 00:00:30.877 you introduce yourself if you could give us your full name. Sure my name 00:00:30.910 --> 00:00:35.616 is George Eugene Amberson. And tell me when you were born and where you 00:00:35.649 --> 00:00:43.649 were born. Well, I was born uh September 22, 1933 uh in a little town 00:00:44.060 --> 00:00:49.467 called Hot Springs, New Mexico, which ultimately about the time I was a 00:00:49.500 --> 00:00:54.016 senior in high school became known as truth or consequences New Mexico. 00:00:54.049 --> 00:00:58.887 That's a long story that we won't get into except that my father always 00:00:58.920 --> 00:01:04.036 said he was the truth that I was the consequence of Of that place. But on 00:01:04.069 --> 00:01:09.007 the Rio Grande River and that's where I spent my 1st 18 years. 00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:11.206 Um 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:16.066 tell me what, what were your parents doing there? Were they, Why were they 00:01:16.099 --> 00:01:20.986 there? Well, my mother was a schoolteacher uh and my father ran a small 00:01:21.019 --> 00:01:25.266 cafe and she went to summer school every summer. That was in the days when 00:01:25.299 --> 00:01:30.926 people started teaching before they had degrees and I usually went with 00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:35.557 her wherever when she was going to school and but that's what they were 00:01:35.590 --> 00:01:39.217 doing at that point in time. This was during the depression of course when 00:01:39.250 --> 00:01:42.607 I was small. 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:46.917 But you said you grew up until you were 18. Yes. I finished, finished high 00:01:46.950 --> 00:01:53.456 school. There went back a few years ago for a 50th reunion and coincided 00:01:53.489 --> 00:01:58.206 with the high school graduation and I was the commencement speaker. Mhm. 00:01:58.239 --> 00:02:04.206 Okay. Were you a good student in school? I was wonderful in activities. 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:11.856 Uh I uh I was student body president. I was and heavy into music and heavy 00:02:11.889 --> 00:02:19.889 into athletics and heavy into girls. And so I wasn't known as one of the 00:02:20.099 --> 00:02:25.906 greatest scholars when I was in high school, but I managed to survive and 00:02:25.939 --> 00:02:31.767 goodbye uh and had enough to get good enough grades to get on to college 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:35.446 of course. And did you have some goals then of what you wanted to do when 00:02:35.479 --> 00:02:42.726 you went to college? Yes, I, I started in music. My parents Made a great 00:02:42.759 --> 00:02:50.606 sacrifice and spent $300 for a saxophone in 19 40 00:02:50.639 --> 00:02:58.639 two When I was about nine and uh, which was a fortune for them. And I 00:02:58.849 --> 00:03:02.186 started on that. And by the second year I was playing in the high school 00:03:02.219 --> 00:03:05.927 band, another fourth grade. That may not say much for the high school band 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:12.307 and the quality of it. Uh, when I was a year later, they bought me a piano. 00:03:12.340 --> 00:03:19.566 And so I studied piano then from then all through high school and uh, it 00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:24.577 had a lot of piano contests and that kind of thing. And then when I was in 00:03:24.610 --> 00:03:29.356 the eighth grade, I played trombone because an uncle left me a trombone, 00:03:29.389 --> 00:03:34.446 one who died left me a trombone. And then I became active in coral 00:03:34.479 --> 00:03:39.557 activities and singing as I've done in church all my life. And so I had 00:03:39.590 --> 00:03:45.506 music in almost in every direction of my life. My parents were singers, 00:03:45.539 --> 00:03:51.427 not trained but good musicians. And so by the time I finished high school 00:03:51.460 --> 00:03:57.846 , I, I had determined that I wanted to be a choral director. And so from 00:03:57.879 --> 00:04:01.596 the day I stepped onto the college campus, why that was, that was my goal 00:04:01.629 --> 00:04:07.707 in my pursuit. It's unusual to know so precisely what you wanted to do. 00:04:07.740 --> 00:04:13.436 Well. Yeah. And I know there's a lot of people change their majors. My 00:04:13.469 --> 00:04:18.246 oldest daughter, I remember said that she got her degree here in business 00:04:18.279 --> 00:04:23.746 and she said, you know, they said in my class that Uh, that the average 00:04:23.779 --> 00:04:31.007 student changes their majors 3.5 times and she said, I have .5 left. Uh, 00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:35.306 and I know that that's the case of course, but I was fortunate and I 00:04:35.339 --> 00:04:42.106 didn't, didn't veer from, from that goal and from that attainment. 00:04:42.139 --> 00:04:46.116 Um, you said your family had been musical the brothers and sisters. No, 00:04:46.149 --> 00:04:52.846 I'm an only child, but my, my dad was a song leader in church. My mother 00:04:52.879 --> 00:04:59.967 read shape notes. Uh, she was, she went to singing schools back when she 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:05.027 was younger and so they learned shape notes of course. I never learned 00:05:05.060 --> 00:05:11.387 that. But uh, she was a very good, very good reader, you know, musically. 00:05:11.420 --> 00:05:17.027 And uh, so that was the extent of their music, but they recognized my 00:05:17.060 --> 00:05:22.817 interests and were wonderful in supporting it. And of course had I not had 00:05:22.850 --> 00:05:26.286 all that background, I'm, I'm not at all sure I would have gone on and 00:05:26.319 --> 00:05:31.106 succeeded, you know, in music. Where did you go to college? I did my 00:05:31.139 --> 00:05:35.437 undergraduate degree at Eastern New Mexico University, which is in Port 00:05:35.470 --> 00:05:40.967 Alice, New Mexico on the east side of the state, a very fine small music 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:47.296 department there and happened to have studied with some people who were in 00:05:47.329 --> 00:05:53.277 the early stages of mammoth careers. A man named robert Page who went on 00:05:53.310 --> 00:05:59.736 to Temple University and then was robert shaw's assistant and he was my 00:05:59.769 --> 00:06:06.377 main inspiration during those years. Then I started teaching As soon as I 00:06:06.410 --> 00:06:12.467 graduated in 1955, tucumcari New Mexico, I was the junior and senior high 00:06:12.500 --> 00:06:17.366 school choral director and took um, Carey, Which is now on I-40, it was 00:06:17.399 --> 00:06:23.527 Highway 66 back in those days. And in intermittent summers, I was going to 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:28.437 the University of Iowa to pursue my master's degree and I did my masters 00:06:28.470 --> 00:06:36.470 degree in vocal performance. And uh, then I finished that in 1958 00:06:36.939 --> 00:06:42.406 and then I moved to Roswell, New Mexico. Uh, not long after the aliens had 00:06:42.439 --> 00:06:48.796 appeared there and uh, I was the high school choral director there. I 00:06:48.829 --> 00:06:52.957 really didn't enjoy being junior and senior high And so I wanted to just 00:06:52.990 --> 00:06:59.197 work with the older kids. So I was there two years and then I was 00:06:59.230 --> 00:07:04.957 intrigued or interested in going to a position at Pepperdine University in 00:07:04.990 --> 00:07:11.507 Los Angeles at that point in time. And that's when the campus was down in 00:07:11.540 --> 00:07:16.317 the Watts district. It's now out in Malibu and has been for years, but It 00:07:16.350 --> 00:07:20.846 was in the watts district there and that was 1959. And uh, I only stayed 00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:24.406 there one year saying with roger Wagner chorale because I was offered the 00:07:24.439 --> 00:07:28.496 job back at my alma mater at Eastern New Mexico. And I thought that might 00:07:28.529 --> 00:07:32.817 be a better place to raise kids and raise a family. So I came back there, 00:07:32.850 --> 00:07:36.096 stayed 10 years as director of choral activities and director of opera 00:07:36.129 --> 00:07:40.406 activities. And uh, in the meantime, the mid sixties I went to the 00:07:40.439 --> 00:07:43.866 University of Northern Colorado where I pursued my doctorate and finished 00:07:43.899 --> 00:07:50.996 it. And then in 1970 I had this hankering to see what I could do with a 00:07:51.029 --> 00:07:53.937 full program if I were ever in charge of it. And it was kind of a 00:07:53.970 --> 00:07:57.996 sacrifice with a big shift to give up some conducting, which I did day and 00:07:58.029 --> 00:08:05.166 night. Um, and uh, so I took the head of the music school at the west 00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:09.916 texas State University in Canyon texas, which is up in the Panhandle near 00:08:09.949 --> 00:08:15.627 Amarillo and it's now called west texas A and M I think, And was there for 00:08:15.660 --> 00:08:23.397 seven years as head of that music school. and then in 1977, I was uh 00:08:23.430 --> 00:08:29.366 solicited by some people who knew me from here to look into the chairman 00:08:29.399 --> 00:08:35.207 of the of the Department of Music here at that time at A. S. U. And I had 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:38.396 no idea whether I would be interested or whether I would have any 00:08:38.429 --> 00:08:43.856 opportunity for this job. But subsequently I was interviewed and I thought 00:08:43.889 --> 00:08:50.917 it was the most magnificent potential that I had ever seen in my life and 00:08:50.950 --> 00:08:58.950 subsequently was offered the job. What was it about it that? Well, I felt 00:08:58.950 --> 00:09:04.746 1st, 1st of all, I thought they had a very strong faculty ah and I thought 00:09:04.779 --> 00:09:12.396 it it had already attained some national exposure uh and become known and 00:09:12.429 --> 00:09:16.967 I just felt like that it was situated in an area and and that it could be 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:23.096 the premier program in the southwest and uh where the school I was in, I 00:09:23.129 --> 00:09:26.886 would it would always be a regional school and I thought this had the 00:09:26.919 --> 00:09:33.506 potential to be truly a national presence in music, which I really, it 00:09:33.539 --> 00:09:39.856 really has turned out to be. And so uh in 1977, in the spring, I was 00:09:39.889 --> 00:09:45.707 offered this job and I accepted to come here as the chairman of the of the 00:09:45.740 --> 00:09:50.776 Department of Music, as it was known at that time. And what does the 00:09:50.809 --> 00:09:55.726 chairman of the Department of Music? Well, essentially what later the 00:09:55.759 --> 00:09:59.136 director of the School of Music did, and that was run the department run 00:09:59.169 --> 00:10:05.457 the, run the music school, uh and with all of the inherent obligations of 00:10:05.490 --> 00:10:13.006 , of curriculum budget hiring, of faculty fundraising, 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:18.337 uh, you know, all of the things that go into recruitment of students of 00:10:18.370 --> 00:10:24.356 course, trying to improve the image of the, of the program to where we 00:10:24.389 --> 00:10:31.236 would attract both top faculty and top students uh to come here. And of 00:10:31.269 --> 00:10:36.167 course, as everyone knows in academia, that the only way you attract about 00:10:36.200 --> 00:10:40.717 build a program to really high stature is with the top faculty. If you 00:10:40.750 --> 00:10:43.596 have that, then the students will come up if you don't have that, the 00:10:43.629 --> 00:10:47.287 students won't come. So that was really my highest priority at the time 00:10:47.320 --> 00:10:54.717 along with facilities we were in uh, the round building over there, which 00:10:54.750 --> 00:11:00.917 has been referred to as the birthday cake on occasion. Um and that's all 00:11:00.950 --> 00:11:05.526 we had. And it was built to house 300 majors. They had moved in in 1971. 00:11:05.559 --> 00:11:13.187 And at that time we had 550 majors Ultimately moving up to 750. And so we 00:11:13.220 --> 00:11:17.756 were so crowded. We had people piled on top of each other. And so that was 00:11:17.789 --> 00:11:23.496 another big issue and a big goal of mine as I embarked as the department 00:11:23.529 --> 00:11:28.907 chairman here, we became a school, I petitioned the board of regions in 00:11:28.940 --> 00:11:36.547 1980 for 79 or 80 to become a school of music of which is, uh, there's not 00:11:36.580 --> 00:11:40.856 a lot of difference in the structure, but the title itself nationally has 00:11:40.889 --> 00:11:47.866 a, has a significant impact on people's view of it. And so we made the 00:11:47.899 --> 00:11:53.266 case and at that time we were changed to School of Music and my title 00:11:53.299 --> 00:11:59.807 became director instead of a chair. Yeah, that's the director. I was going 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:06.467 to ask you who was Dean College of Fine Arts at that time. It was Jewel 00:12:06.500 --> 00:12:14.500 Teller, Henry brian's mom of course was the Founding Dean in 1964 of the 00:12:15.049 --> 00:12:21.266 College of Fine Arts. Uh, I replaced a man named Andy broke mama who had 00:12:21.299 --> 00:12:26.886 been here for a number of years and went to Ohio State and then jules. 00:12:26.919 --> 00:12:34.606 Heller followed bridesmaid as the dean. So he was here for eight or 9 00:12:34.639 --> 00:12:41.846 years I think is my dean. It sounds like the director of the school. You 00:12:41.879 --> 00:12:46.496 weren't that involved with music. Did you still stay involved with actual 00:12:46.529 --> 00:12:53.146 conducting or not as much as I would have liked. In fact, I, I pretty much 00:12:53.179 --> 00:12:56.907 had to recognize when I came here with the size and scope of this program 00:12:56.940 --> 00:13:02.736 and the challenges that we faced in the goals that we set, that, that was 00:13:02.769 --> 00:13:08.596 going to be more limited. Always missed that. I continue to do guests in 00:13:08.629 --> 00:13:13.976 conducting. Uh, take advantage of guest conducting opportunities. Uh, 00:13:14.009 --> 00:13:19.756 doing all state choirs with high school students and so on, but just 00:13:19.789 --> 00:13:25.856 simply keeping up with that shop on a day to day basis. It was more than a 00:13:25.889 --> 00:13:33.889 full time job II attended between 250 and 275 concerts recitals a year. Uh 00:13:34.940 --> 00:13:37.876 because if you're going to run the show then you're going to know what's 00:13:37.909 --> 00:13:40.957 happening and you're going to encourage people and have them in your 00:13:40.990 --> 00:13:45.907 corner and know them to know that they're supported, you've got to show up. 00:13:45.940 --> 00:13:52.126 And so my evenings and my weekends for 19 years, we're literally consumed 00:13:52.159 --> 00:13:56.207 with going to concerts and recitals. 00:13:56.240 --> 00:14:01.707 Did you still keep your hand in those somewhat of singing and directing? 00:14:01.740 --> 00:14:07.976 Well, I can I continue to teach at least one class. Every semester might 00:14:08.009 --> 00:14:13.437 be Coral conducting, it might be the Coral secondary music methods class 00:14:13.470 --> 00:14:18.657 of the people that were going to be going out um on occasion I would teach 00:14:18.690 --> 00:14:25.506 a voice class uh on a couple of occasions I took one of our directors 00:14:25.539 --> 00:14:29.917 requires for sabbatical when they were on sabbatical, replace dr Douglas 00:14:29.950 --> 00:14:36.276 McEwen in 98 92 I'm sorry, 82 who was our very nationally known choral 00:14:36.309 --> 00:14:40.766 conductor and I happened to have done the moderate symphony, which is a 00:14:40.799 --> 00:14:44.226 huge undertaking that semester. I always accused him of choosing the 00:14:44.259 --> 00:14:48.396 semester that he was going to take off, but it was a big success. We did 00:14:48.429 --> 00:14:54.616 it with the phoenix symphony. And So no, not until I really uh stepped out 00:14:54.649 --> 00:15:01.947 of the director's chair in 1996. Did I get back in a very full time basis 00:15:01.980 --> 00:15:07.726 for conducting, which was a wonderful thing for me. Mhm. We'll talk a 00:15:07.759 --> 00:15:11.197 little bit more about coming to Arizona, you didn't come too far. Some 00:15:11.230 --> 00:15:14.207 people came from the East coast or something, but someone to play with the 00:15:14.240 --> 00:15:20.657 southwest. But was that a big step to to know my goal? And it was, I was 00:15:20.690 --> 00:15:25.356 very fortunate on this. I never wanted to leave the southwest. I was the 00:15:25.389 --> 00:15:31.287 southwest boy. I knew people in the southwest. I liked people in the 00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:39.320 southwest. I liked the nature of the culture in the southwest. And so I 00:15:39.799 --> 00:15:45.907 really kind of only looked at positions that were in this geographical 00:15:45.940 --> 00:15:52.317 area. And uh and many people who seek college positions are not fortunate 00:15:52.350 --> 00:15:55.736 enough to be able to do that. You've got to go where the job is, as you 00:15:55.769 --> 00:16:01.077 know, but I happen to be in a position where I could more than more or 00:16:01.110 --> 00:16:07.207 less pick and choose. So other than my one year out at Pepperdine, which 00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:14.256 was still and not so far removed, but out of this immediate area. All my 00:16:14.289 --> 00:16:19.106 teaching was in new Mexico texas and Arizona and I had made a decision 00:16:19.139 --> 00:16:23.616 when I was at west texas state that if I ever left there, I would only go 00:16:23.649 --> 00:16:28.116 if I could stay in the southwest. So this was a kind of a targeted goal 00:16:28.149 --> 00:16:34.346 for me, not this particular school, but to, to live and, and enjoy and 00:16:34.379 --> 00:16:39.067 raise my family in the southwest. So no, Arizona was an easy adjustment 00:16:39.100 --> 00:16:42.077 for me. The only difficult adjustment was, I had always taught in 00:16:42.110 --> 00:16:48.276 universities and small communities And of course Phoenix even in 1977 was 00:16:48.309 --> 00:16:54.787 a bit of a culture shock to me. Ah and uh, but I, you know, I've never had 00:16:54.820 --> 00:17:00.256 any regrets and nor my family and whatever. So, uh, we've always felt good 00:17:00.289 --> 00:17:05.586 about, about not only coming here, but staying here as a young man when 00:17:05.619 --> 00:17:10.336 you were involved with music, Did you ever have aspirations to have a 00:17:10.369 --> 00:17:16.546 singing career or, you know, go to broadway or Hollywood? No, I always 00:17:16.579 --> 00:17:21.647 wanted to be a conductor. Uh, no, I did quite a lot of solo work uh, when 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:25.367 I was in college and then even after I was out all those 10 years, I was 00:17:25.400 --> 00:17:31.546 at Eastern New Mexico. I, I did quite a lot of solo work uh in various 00:17:31.579 --> 00:17:37.726 places, but it was not my primary goal as far as a reputation as far as a 00:17:37.759 --> 00:17:44.617 high priority. Uh, and ultimately developed lots of allergies and drainage 00:17:44.650 --> 00:17:49.766 and things that are singers, nightmares. And finally, I kind of had to 00:17:49.799 --> 00:17:53.786 give that up because it was too scary because I never knew. I always knew 00:17:53.819 --> 00:17:57.847 what I was unless I was sick. I knew what I could do as a conductor. But 00:17:57.880 --> 00:18:03.016 you know, if you're contracted to go sing with the symphony and you sing 00:18:03.049 --> 00:18:09.016 poorly, uh, you know, that reputation will kill you and whether you can 00:18:09.049 --> 00:18:13.566 help it or not. And so I enjoyed it, but it was never a priority for me 00:18:13.599 --> 00:18:18.407 and never a goal, always conducting inspiring and working with people and 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:22.897 making music and touching their hearts and the audience's hearts and that 00:18:22.930 --> 00:18:28.877 , that, that's been my life essentially. And I used the same techniques 00:18:28.910 --> 00:18:34.516 that I used in rehearsal in trying to work with my 80 number of faculty in 00:18:34.549 --> 00:18:40.907 the School of Music, you know, in terms of, of the people skills that I, 00:18:40.940 --> 00:18:45.357 it cultivated as a conductor seemed to translate easily into 00:18:45.390 --> 00:18:51.806 administration, explain that, how does that work well 00:18:51.839 --> 00:18:59.839 in, uh, when you have choirs, people deserve two things, mainly they 00:19:00.730 --> 00:19:05.766 deserve to be a part of something that's high quality and secondly, they 00:19:05.799 --> 00:19:13.799 deserve to enjoy it and be inspired and be lifted up with it. And so as a 00:19:14.180 --> 00:19:19.486 result, I, I always viewed it my challenge every time people came to a 00:19:19.519 --> 00:19:24.796 rehearsal to be well enough prepared first of all. And it takes hours of 00:19:24.829 --> 00:19:28.217 preparation, Some people think that conductors just go in and have a sing 00:19:28.250 --> 00:19:36.250 along, you know, and uh uh, that I was very prepared to know how to, how 00:19:36.289 --> 00:19:41.877 to use every minute to its best advantage, but to have fun uh, to have a 00:19:41.910 --> 00:19:49.476 little humor in the rehearsal uh, to, to to challenge them, to inspire 00:19:49.509 --> 00:19:54.157 them to let them know when it was achieving greatness to let them know 00:19:54.190 --> 00:19:59.836 what it wasn't, but to, but to have a certain kind of aura and a certain 00:19:59.869 --> 00:20:05.246 kind of chemistry with the group that is always upbeat and is always fun 00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:09.476 and always inspirational and they go away feeling good about it and 00:20:09.509 --> 00:20:14.207 knowing that something really positive was accomplished. 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:19.336 And so in translating that into administration, part of it had to do with 00:20:19.369 --> 00:20:22.367 going to all those concerts and recitals and being supportive of my 00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:25.917 students and in my faculty, sending them follow up notes of 00:20:25.950 --> 00:20:32.607 congratulations, but your mere presence is the main thing that you come, 00:20:32.640 --> 00:20:39.586 you know, uh in addition, uh keeping humor with people that can get very 00:20:39.619 --> 00:20:46.256 serious about themselves, uh you know, uh my goodness musicians can just 00:20:46.289 --> 00:20:52.207 become so focused and self centered about their little niche, you know, 00:20:52.240 --> 00:20:58.597 And so I would keep them off balance somewhat hopefully in a good natured 00:20:58.630 --> 00:21:04.597 way, but always giving, giving them full attention knowing they had been 00:21:04.630 --> 00:21:10.407 heard knowing regardless of whether or not we ended up agreeing or not 00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:16.137 that we knew how to disagree and that they felt good going away from my 00:21:16.170 --> 00:21:23.326 office. Also the issue of public appearances and uh fundraising and 00:21:23.359 --> 00:21:27.086 setting up a friends of music group, which I did community group and 00:21:27.119 --> 00:21:31.947 things like that, those were all people skills that I applied in my 00:21:31.980 --> 00:21:39.980 rehearsals that I translated into administration. 00:21:40.039 --> 00:21:44.486 You mentioned the building you had when you first came and how crowded it 00:21:44.519 --> 00:21:48.707 was. We're going to talk a little bit about how the department grew and 00:21:48.740 --> 00:21:54.397 changed during the years. Yeah, well it was a, it was a perfect time to 00:21:54.430 --> 00:21:59.187 come here because as I viewed when I came and interviewed, we were right 00:21:59.220 --> 00:22:04.637 on right on the threshold of having the potential to really grow and to 00:22:04.670 --> 00:22:08.647 become something special. There are some of the ingredients were already 00:22:08.680 --> 00:22:14.457 here. We had some pretty good faculty. The facilities we had were fine and 00:22:14.490 --> 00:22:19.177 of course with the damage, uh, concert hall, which when we could get in 00:22:19.210 --> 00:22:26.506 and I won't get into that. Um, was, it was, it was a plus, but 00:22:26.539 --> 00:22:32.177 becoming a school of music was critical. I felt to that. But the big, the 00:22:32.210 --> 00:22:39.117 big things were threefold one was to be allowed to go out and get top 00:22:39.150 --> 00:22:44.726 flight faculty when we had openings and back in those days. Although not 00:22:44.759 --> 00:22:49.536 many people left here. We were adding positions and uh, I had as many as 00:22:49.569 --> 00:22:56.786 10, 10 positions to fill in 80 or 81 and along in there and we were very, 00:22:56.819 --> 00:23:01.627 very selective. We didn't wait to see who applied. We made sure that 00:23:01.660 --> 00:23:08.147 people applied that we wanted, you know, that we really felt would add to 00:23:08.180 --> 00:23:14.256 the prestige and the quality of our program and we were vigorous in that 00:23:14.289 --> 00:23:20.536 and fortunately received good administrative support during those years 00:23:20.569 --> 00:23:24.867 about doing that. And as I had stated earlier, that's the, that's the 00:23:24.900 --> 00:23:32.586 cornerstone of any program at least in music is the faculty, a flute, a 00:23:32.619 --> 00:23:36.467 flute student. If they're not gonna come here and study with somebody 00:23:36.500 --> 00:23:39.796 that's a nobody in flute, but if you've got somebody that's 00:23:39.829 --> 00:23:44.347 internationally recognized, they'll kill to get here trumpet. We were out 00:23:44.380 --> 00:23:49.506 , we were out and about doing that all the time, identifying who we wanted. 00:23:49.539 --> 00:23:55.467 Uh, and then of course the, the spin off of that was then getting top 00:23:55.500 --> 00:23:58.986 students because those people are out doing concerts all over the world 00:23:59.019 --> 00:24:02.526 and people, people are hearing about doing all state choirs, bands, 00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:07.887 orchestras, students are being attracted to them, you know, and, and so it 00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:13.776 feeds on itself and, and so we, we had this great kind of roller coaster 00:24:13.809 --> 00:24:18.076 that what one fed off of the other, you know? And so then we begin to get 00:24:18.109 --> 00:24:21.867 began getting some of the top students in the nation. I must admit that 00:24:21.900 --> 00:24:28.056 one thing that really helped was that we were granted About in 1980, I 00:24:28.089 --> 00:24:34.476 think what were called regent tuition scholarships for music actually for 00:24:34.509 --> 00:24:40.597 fine arts, but we have been the ones that instigated the request and we 00:24:40.630 --> 00:24:44.957 were given a significant number of in state and out of state scholarships 00:24:44.990 --> 00:24:50.177 because in music it's, it's like athletics, everybody's after the top kids 00:24:50.210 --> 00:24:56.326 , everybody wants those kids. And so you have to compete and you have to 00:24:56.359 --> 00:25:00.826 compete hard and, and without some kind of financial aid, you're not gonna 00:25:00.859 --> 00:25:03.907 even get off the ground, you know, because others, so we were very 00:25:03.940 --> 00:25:08.917 fortunate that we had had some scholarship aid that was pretty significant 00:25:08.950 --> 00:25:14.217 to allow us to go into the market and compete against the Eastman's or 00:25:14.250 --> 00:25:19.286 even the Juilliard's and the indiana's and uh, you know, Illinois and, and 00:25:19.319 --> 00:25:27.319 so forth. So that was very significant. The space issue was crippling. Uh 00:25:27.440 --> 00:25:33.756 , and it almost, it almost did us in because we, we just couldn't, we 00:25:33.789 --> 00:25:38.357 could hardly function. Uh, I had as many as two and three teachers trying 00:25:38.390 --> 00:25:43.326 to teach full loads of private students in one studio trading off, you 00:25:43.359 --> 00:25:48.407 know, uh, we had no place to put THS, we told them, you know, you bring a 00:25:48.440 --> 00:25:53.137 blanket and we'll put you out on the lawn, you know, because we don't have 00:25:53.170 --> 00:25:59.457 anywhere to put you, uh, because we were so crowded. And and of course, 00:25:59.490 --> 00:26:05.316 immediately after I arrived, I began campaigning for additional space. But 00:26:05.349 --> 00:26:08.397 it was tough because see we've only been in that building six years. Well 00:26:08.430 --> 00:26:13.667 , we'd already almost already doubled the number that it was built for 30 00:26:13.700 --> 00:26:18.607 faculty and about 300 music majors. And after I'd been here about five or 00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:24.546 six years. No, well, by the time I came, we had about 500 majors and about 00:26:24.579 --> 00:26:30.637 45 faculty. And about five or six years later we had 700 majors In about 00:26:30.670 --> 00:26:38.617 70 faculty and still in the same space. And uh so it was a real struggle, 00:26:38.650 --> 00:26:43.467 but I guess I can let the cat out of the bag here and and this at this 00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:51.500 point in my life uh in 1984 we had a a 10 year, excuse me, 10 year review 00:26:53.839 --> 00:26:58.607 for accreditation by the National Association of Schools of Music. And I 00:26:58.640 --> 00:27:05.697 knew all of these three visitors and um I too was one of those people that 00:27:05.730 --> 00:27:10.766 went about and did that all the time. And so I said, now if you c if you 00:27:10.799 --> 00:27:15.217 decide no, I think some of them started saying something about our crowded 00:27:15.250 --> 00:27:18.776 conditions. And I said, well, when you talk to the president, President 00:27:18.809 --> 00:27:24.887 and the provost, please, you know, make a big case on that. And they came 00:27:24.920 --> 00:27:28.857 back and said, well, we didn't seem to make much of an impression about 00:27:28.890 --> 00:27:35.917 that. And I said, well you can't defer a school on budgetary issues, only 00:27:35.950 --> 00:27:41.796 curriculum issues, but you can ask for progress reports on issues such as 00:27:41.829 --> 00:27:45.927 space and budget and things where a couple of years later they come back 00:27:45.960 --> 00:27:50.217 and say, how are you doing that? You know, we needed. So I said, whatever. 00:27:50.250 --> 00:27:53.667 So they did, they put in progress That we want to see a progress report 00:27:53.700 --> 00:27:59.367 in two years on your facilities and in two years a letter came and I wrote 00:27:59.400 --> 00:28:03.546 back and sent a copy to the provost of the President saying I regret to 00:28:03.579 --> 00:28:09.147 inform you that our progress report reports no progress on our building. 00:28:09.180 --> 00:28:15.776 And I got a call from the provost at that time saying who authorized you 00:28:15.809 --> 00:28:20.306 to write this letter and I said and I might as well use his name. I said 00:28:20.339 --> 00:28:26.707 dr Kinzinger I uh you know I'm I'm the institutional representative here. 00:28:26.740 --> 00:28:33.016 And uh I was I was asked well who says this is right? And I said well I 00:28:33.049 --> 00:28:35.306 don't know anything different, Is there anything here? He said well get 00:28:35.339 --> 00:28:40.607 over here. And I went over there and he said 00:28:40.640 --> 00:28:44.917 he said you shouldn't have sent this letter and I said really? And he said 00:28:44.950 --> 00:28:48.607 yes, he said, ow he said go in there and look at our bullet list of our 00:28:48.640 --> 00:28:54.566 bonding priorities for new facilities and and I know he probably deny this 00:28:54.599 --> 00:29:00.367 but uh al went in there and the third priority on the bonding facilities. 00:29:00.400 --> 00:29:05.516 Something else had been white it out and music had been written in and 00:29:05.549 --> 00:29:09.947 from that day forward we were in the hunt for new facilities. That was 00:29:09.980 --> 00:29:15.536 about 1986. Now I don't know that that played a significant role but I've 00:29:15.569 --> 00:29:23.569 always believed that it probably did anyway and we began planning and by 00:29:23.990 --> 00:29:31.990 1998 we had architecture architects selected and all that for You. What 00:29:33.220 --> 00:29:41.220 I'm sorry, 89, 88, 88, sorry, 88 We were had had planning committees and 00:29:41.589 --> 00:29:47.127 university wide this and that when working with physical plant and and uh 00:29:47.160 --> 00:29:54.707 we had architects hired then and began to look at new facilities. And so 00:29:54.740 --> 00:30:00.056 from that day forward we were aggressively into it. Let bids, I believe in 00:30:00.089 --> 00:30:02.927 the spring of 1990 00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:09.806 And occupied it fully then in the summer of 92. That's all the wing, 00:30:09.839 --> 00:30:13.826 That's everything with the music building that's not round over there. 00:30:13.859 --> 00:30:18.647 That's not the five story round building. That whole wing that goes out 00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:25.076 with a new library space with percussion space with rehearsal space with 00:30:25.109 --> 00:30:30.127 jazz. Many, many more practice rooms and many, many more studios, two more 00:30:30.160 --> 00:30:35.457 recital and organ hall to more recital halls. Just all the things that we 00:30:35.490 --> 00:30:39.677 were desperate to either have, that we didn't have or that we needed more 00:30:39.710 --> 00:30:45.476 of. And so I would have to uh, along with getting the School of Music name 00:30:45.509 --> 00:30:50.637 change, getting the doctoral program, which I haven't mentioned of which 00:30:50.670 --> 00:30:55.046 we had nothing at the time of a major D. M. A Doctor of Musical Arts 00:30:55.079 --> 00:31:00.296 program in long, about 1980 or 81 which turned out to be a very nationally 00:31:00.329 --> 00:31:07.086 prominent one. And getting those regions scholarships uh, to help us 00:31:07.119 --> 00:31:13.397 become competitive. The biggest thing in my life probably over there that 00:31:13.430 --> 00:31:19.576 I can say if I made a real major contribution. It was finally seeing that 00:31:19.609 --> 00:31:24.536 building come to fruition and it's been, it's been wonderful. It's been 00:31:24.569 --> 00:31:31.496 viewed by many, many as as a kind of a beacon of, of what music buildings 00:31:31.529 --> 00:31:35.607 should be like. And we've had many, many visitors who come in who are 00:31:35.640 --> 00:31:40.397 thinking of, you know, we're bringing architects to look and so forth. So 00:31:40.430 --> 00:31:46.506 that occupied a large portion of my life for a number of years as I was 00:31:46.539 --> 00:31:49.306 the director. 00:31:49.339 --> 00:31:54.147 Why don't you go back and talk about the doctoral program? Sure. 00:31:54.180 --> 00:32:01.816 When I arrived, I found out that the previous year, My predecessor had 00:32:01.849 --> 00:32:09.849 sent about five or 6 new doctoral proposals over to the graduate college, 00:32:10.910 --> 00:32:16.996 of which no one ever does. That mean I'm not being critical. He was trying 00:32:17.029 --> 00:32:22.107 to do the best, but you know, graduate college is just, they don't, 00:32:22.140 --> 00:32:26.996 they're not going to give you six new doctoral ph D s or D M A s, you know 00:32:27.029 --> 00:32:33.536 , I mean up front and they turned them all down. And so we had to go back 00:32:33.569 --> 00:32:38.657 to the drawing board and decide what we could really do well and then how 00:32:38.690 --> 00:32:44.147 we could do it. And then put in a much leaner, but much more qualitative 00:32:44.180 --> 00:32:52.180 proposal. And so we put in a proposal for uh solo performance 00:32:54.470 --> 00:33:01.336 within the various instruments and we put in a proposal for essentially a 00:33:01.369 --> 00:33:09.369 conducting degree, uh, which had a music education component in it because 00:33:09.569 --> 00:33:13.947 most choral directors who go into college end up teaching certain music 00:33:13.980 --> 00:33:21.207 education coral methods or whatever. And so basically, and that was an 00:33:21.240 --> 00:33:26.157 instrumental and Coral Orchestra and band. And so basically that's all we 00:33:26.190 --> 00:33:34.190 went in for initially. Later on we did a D. M. A. In. Uh, let me say that 00:33:35.319 --> 00:33:41.576 the Doctor of Musical Arts degree is the primary doctoral degree in, in 00:33:41.609 --> 00:33:46.137 the field of music. There are phds in fields such as music history, 00:33:46.170 --> 00:33:53.756 musicology, her music theory. Sometimes the music had, but the D. M. A. Is 00:33:53.789 --> 00:34:00.207 the recognized doctoral program in, in music. And that's what we went for. 00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:04.976 And as a result, we did all our homework. I spent a lot of time with Rudy 00:34:05.009 --> 00:34:09.927 , Campbell and dr Payne who were kind of the issue reps on the region 00:34:09.960 --> 00:34:13.956 board of Regents at that time. I still love ready Campbell see him at the 00:34:13.989 --> 00:34:18.887 ball games all the time. And he was a great advocate for us. Even served 00:34:18.920 --> 00:34:24.126 on our friends and music board for a while and got them all primed to help 00:34:24.159 --> 00:34:30.606 us. You know, and uh, and you have a, we knew was going to fight it. Uh, 00:34:30.639 --> 00:34:34.606 they wanted to be the only kid on the block with a doctor in the state, 00:34:34.639 --> 00:34:41.026 which is not a new story and a number of academic areas I know, but we 00:34:41.059 --> 00:34:44.657 felt like we've done our homework and chuck Wolfe who was the graduate 00:34:44.690 --> 00:34:48.896 dean went up with myself and my associate director to Flagstaff to the 00:34:48.929 --> 00:34:55.106 Board of Regents meeting. And uh, it was passed. And from that day forward 00:34:55.139 --> 00:35:01.986 we were flooded with applications for our doctoral program because we had 00:35:02.019 --> 00:35:06.407 such well known people that people wanted to come here and study with, 00:35:06.440 --> 00:35:11.916 particularly dr McEwing, who I mentioned as a choral director and uh, and 00:35:11.949 --> 00:35:17.887 you Eugene Lombardi, who was the orchestra director. And so it just took 00:35:17.920 --> 00:35:24.186 off, just took off and so we were deciding who not to take almost after 00:35:24.219 --> 00:35:28.816 that, you know, which was a nice, nice thing. We had so many applications 00:35:28.849 --> 00:35:35.867 and it continues to thrive and has been a very effective program for us, 00:35:35.900 --> 00:35:41.447 bringing in wonderful, wonderful people who have gone on in to find 00:35:41.480 --> 00:35:47.436 college teaching positions. I think we figured we have over 100 of them 00:35:47.469 --> 00:35:53.146 out there now that are in college and university positions. And uh, so 00:35:53.179 --> 00:35:57.077 that's been a, that was a wonderful thing that was necessary. And for us 00:35:57.110 --> 00:36:00.677 to take on this national presence, we had to have a viable doctoral 00:36:00.710 --> 00:36:08.637 program. Yeah. Um looking through your kind of summary of your career that 00:36:08.670 --> 00:36:14.026 I found here, it talks about all of the different choirs that you've taken 00:36:14.059 --> 00:36:19.947 two different tours of europe and things like that a little bit about Yes 00:36:19.980 --> 00:36:27.980 , you know, one of the greatest things about academia is that uh, in, in 00:36:28.730 --> 00:36:33.637 the corporate world, the ceo doesn't usually go back to the assembly line 00:36:33.670 --> 00:36:41.670 , but in, excuse me, in academia, you know, if you're a tenured 00:36:41.969 --> 00:36:46.936 administrator at some point in time, you have the luxury of going back and 00:36:46.969 --> 00:36:51.146 doing whatever it was that got you here in the first place usually or got 00:36:51.179 --> 00:36:59.179 you into music. and so in 1996, Uh well in action in 1995 I decided that 00:36:59.199 --> 00:37:04.947 it was time for me to let somebody else have all that fun. And I uh, I 00:37:04.980 --> 00:37:11.997 went in and told at that time Dean Wills, I had just been here two years 00:37:12.030 --> 00:37:16.026 and and told him that after I was giving him a year's notice that I wanted 00:37:16.059 --> 00:37:24.059 to move back into the faculty and so I did a year later and what a great 00:37:25.630 --> 00:37:30.436 time I had for six years just going back and worrying about nothing but 00:37:30.469 --> 00:37:36.497 making music and being with students, you know, after all that time. And 00:37:36.530 --> 00:37:43.086 so I taught choral methods, I taught choral conducting. I observed student 00:37:43.119 --> 00:37:50.287 teachers uh and uh then the, the the most fun thing I had was I took over 00:37:50.320 --> 00:37:58.320 the issue Coral Union, which Uh at that time was, Oh, it was about a 200 00:37:58.519 --> 00:38:05.367 voice group, I guess primarily consisting of community people. It had 00:38:05.400 --> 00:38:10.807 evolved over the years where it was a big participation by community 00:38:10.840 --> 00:38:18.117 people and uh, it was probably 85% community people uh and students who 00:38:18.150 --> 00:38:22.537 wish to could participate, but they were in the university choir and 00:38:22.570 --> 00:38:28.467 concert choir and jazz choir. And you know, and so and so it was a sin, 00:38:28.500 --> 00:38:33.497 it's a symphony chorus is what it is and they do works with symphony. And 00:38:33.530 --> 00:38:39.566 at that time they were the the primary choir chorus for the phoenix 00:38:39.599 --> 00:38:44.447 symphony as well as performing with the A. S. U. Symphony that occurred in 00:38:44.480 --> 00:38:49.236 19. I actually started that in 1993 because there was a turnover in our 00:38:49.269 --> 00:38:53.376 Coral faculty. So I took the Coral Union three years before I got out of 00:38:53.409 --> 00:38:57.967 administration, which was a kind of a nice transition for me as I moved 00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:04.807 back into my discipline. And uh so I actually uh and tim russell who was 00:39:04.840 --> 00:39:08.727 who is still our choral director, timothy, orchestra director, who's 00:39:08.760 --> 00:39:12.227 wonderful and has a great one of the best college symphonies I think in 00:39:12.260 --> 00:39:18.217 the nation. He came at that same year 93 and we can, you know, we work 00:39:18.250 --> 00:39:26.250 together and uh uh had collusion with many, many works as well. And but I 00:39:26.869 --> 00:39:32.146 just had the greatest time with those people. Uh we continue to upgrade 00:39:32.179 --> 00:39:37.017 the group and be more and more selective so that we had top line singers 00:39:37.050 --> 00:39:42.157 in there, not just a come y'all come kind of group, you know, so that it 00:39:42.190 --> 00:39:48.066 could really achieve what I hoped would be greatness and we accomplished 00:39:48.099 --> 00:39:52.947 that over a period of years with more and more stringent auditions and and 00:39:52.980 --> 00:39:57.006 so forth, although we were not, we were not about to turn people out who 00:39:57.039 --> 00:40:03.606 were in there, but if as we had had turnover? We we, we we held out for 00:40:03.639 --> 00:40:08.316 really good strong singers and you know, there's a difference in, in a 00:40:08.349 --> 00:40:14.637 group like that and a student choir, student choirs, are they love it or 00:40:14.670 --> 00:40:19.517 they wouldn't be in there, but they also are there because they have to be 00:40:19.550 --> 00:40:24.756 , they go, they're there because they're required to be, none of those, 00:40:24.789 --> 00:40:29.057 adult people are required to be there there, there only because they want 00:40:29.090 --> 00:40:34.477 to be there and they love it and on Tuesday nights they couldn't wait, you 00:40:34.510 --> 00:40:38.046 know, because that's their manner for the week, you know, from being a 00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:42.907 computer analyst or a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher or, you know, 00:40:42.940 --> 00:40:49.407 whatever else they did. And as a result, they just were wonderful to work 00:40:49.440 --> 00:40:51.747 with because they just couldn't get enough. You could just, they just 00:40:51.780 --> 00:40:57.977 opened up and you just kept pouring it in, you know, and uh, they, so that 00:40:58.010 --> 00:41:03.006 was such a great thing for me and, and I kept that then for nine years 00:41:03.039 --> 00:41:08.126 from the three before I got administration and in the six before I retired. 00:41:08.159 --> 00:41:15.677 And as a result, then we started uh uh, talking about touring and one of 00:41:15.710 --> 00:41:20.626 the advantages you have is that with a group like that, unlike a student 00:41:20.659 --> 00:41:24.807 group, you don't have to get out and raise all the money, you know, you 00:41:24.840 --> 00:41:29.166 just say it's going to cost this much, how many can go and you know, how 00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:32.876 many want to go do we have a balanced group, do we have enough that you 00:41:32.909 --> 00:41:38.776 know, and and because they normally have their own resources and so we 00:41:38.809 --> 00:41:43.416 didn't have to sell garbage cans and things like that, you know, to raise 00:41:43.449 --> 00:41:48.836 money as student groups, you know, primarily have to do, although we did 00:41:48.869 --> 00:41:53.006 raise quite a lot of money to scholarship some of our own strong singer 00:41:53.039 --> 00:42:00.157 students who would go along to help bolster uh the group and a lot of of 00:42:00.190 --> 00:42:04.677 our people even contributed money to scholarships for students as well as 00:42:04.710 --> 00:42:09.936 paying their own way. So in 95 we jumped off and tried that with the 00:42:09.969 --> 00:42:13.747 company that was very well known of of having representatives all over the 00:42:13.780 --> 00:42:16.267 world and could have good content because what we wanted to do was 00:42:16.300 --> 00:42:21.006 performed with orchestras in the various countries we went to And so we 00:42:21.039 --> 00:42:26.097 did the first year we took about an 80 voice choir and went to the Czech 00:42:26.130 --> 00:42:30.827 Republic in Germany and performed with orchestras there in Karlovy vary 00:42:30.860 --> 00:42:36.236 and in Prague and in Munich and it was a big success. Well they wanted to 00:42:36.269 --> 00:42:41.617 do it again. So in 97 we had more than 100 singers and usually then we 00:42:41.650 --> 00:42:45.267 would take another 25 to 40 00:42:45.300 --> 00:42:50.097 uh spouses and friends who just went along, you know, which help pay our 00:42:50.130 --> 00:42:54.566 way, you know as well because they were paid customers and so we went to 00:42:54.599 --> 00:43:00.997 England and France and saying are saying of the great modeling cathedral 00:43:01.030 --> 00:43:05.986 in downtown Paris on their concert series one Sunday afternoon with 1700 00:43:06.019 --> 00:43:11.146 people in the hall that held 1100 and they were hanging from the statues 00:43:11.179 --> 00:43:16.867 and everything. One of the most memorable occasions we ever had and I have 00:43:16.900 --> 00:43:21.787 a picture of that with that audience, oh my wall. And then three years 00:43:21.820 --> 00:43:24.427 later we went to Australia, which I never thought we would be able to 00:43:24.460 --> 00:43:32.460 mount And we took 100 and 60 people then About 130 singers I guess. And uh 00:43:32.550 --> 00:43:36.316 , and one of the things this company did was provide us with supplemental 00:43:36.349 --> 00:43:40.447 tours if anybody wanted after our singing tour was over and we would only 00:43:40.480 --> 00:43:44.177 schedule three concerts. So in a two week period they had plenty of free 00:43:44.210 --> 00:43:47.807 time to do other things. We didn't just some choirs go over there and 00:43:47.840 --> 00:43:54.907 seeing 10 concerts in 11 days, you know, and are dead and so uh in that 00:43:54.940 --> 00:43:58.336 case they had a tour, a supplemental tour to New Zealand and went up into 00:43:58.369 --> 00:44:04.086 cans up in the northern area and so people had that option or to come home 00:44:04.119 --> 00:44:09.697 after the two weeks. So we sang in Melbourne and in Canberra and in Sydney 00:44:09.730 --> 00:44:14.717 with those symphonies and it was wonderful, you know, and, and to interact 00:44:14.750 --> 00:44:19.896 with those orchestras, you know? And then lastly in 2002, which was my 00:44:19.929 --> 00:44:27.657 Swan song uh we went to Italy and we sang in Rome and Florence and venice 00:44:27.690 --> 00:44:33.026 with orchestras from there and I found that the language is never a 00:44:33.059 --> 00:44:38.046 problem. Musicians can communicate whether you whether you're talking or 00:44:38.079 --> 00:44:42.137 not, I can sing sing them a phrase I can, you know, and there are always 00:44:42.170 --> 00:44:45.336 enough in the, in the group that speak english that they can help 00:44:45.369 --> 00:44:48.836 translate if you need. It started out the first year with the translator, 00:44:48.869 --> 00:44:53.706 it killed me, my my rehearsal just died. I was saying now tell him this 00:44:53.739 --> 00:44:58.847 and he wasn't a very good music and by the time he told him, I mean we'd 00:44:58.880 --> 00:45:02.327 all gone to sleep, you know, so I said, never again will I have a 00:45:02.360 --> 00:45:06.427 translator, I will communicate with them in whatever ways and it worked 00:45:06.460 --> 00:45:14.460 fine. And so my last concert was in the Ferrari basilica in venice, one of 00:45:15.110 --> 00:45:21.387 the most beautiful with the big Titian painting behind behind us there uh 00:45:21.420 --> 00:45:26.727 doing the multi requiem and that's the most, we have tapes of all these of 00:45:26.760 --> 00:45:31.146 course and that's one of the most memorable and moving experiences I ever 00:45:31.179 --> 00:45:35.416 had in my life and of course the choir was very emotional at night because 00:45:35.449 --> 00:45:40.486 they knew it was my last concert, but before we went in I said, you know, 00:45:40.519 --> 00:45:43.626 now you've been asking me how do I feel about this and I said, I have a 00:45:43.659 --> 00:45:47.407 lot of mixed emotions, but I'll tell you one thing, I'm not gonna go in 00:45:47.440 --> 00:45:51.186 there and and, and cry tonight, I'm gonna go in there and focus and make 00:45:51.219 --> 00:45:54.526 this the most beautiful experience I get and you better do the same 00:45:54.559 --> 00:45:58.907 because they were kind of weepy in this and that, you know, and they did 00:45:58.940 --> 00:46:04.787 and uh right after that and then I'll, I won't relate to this, but the 00:46:04.820 --> 00:46:07.756 whole group took my wife and I had, and I didn't know what they were going 00:46:07.789 --> 00:46:12.256 to do and they took us down to one of the canals there and they had a 00:46:12.289 --> 00:46:17.137 gondola waiting with the guy with his hat and all put us in the gondola 00:46:17.170 --> 00:46:23.086 with flowers, flowers for K and a bottle of wine for us, set us off into 00:46:23.119 --> 00:46:27.896 the night with the choir singing o solo me, Oh, I don't know how you could 00:46:27.929 --> 00:46:31.227 go out any better than that. I don't, I don't know how you could ever beat 00:46:31.260 --> 00:46:36.197 that, you know? So that was my final concert. But that's a long way around 00:46:36.230 --> 00:46:40.416 saying what a great, wonderful thing it was that I could go back in and do 00:46:40.449 --> 00:46:46.396 what I, I love doing really the most with wonderful people and and have 00:46:46.429 --> 00:46:51.477 those kinds of experiences and those tours and all and and finish out like 00:46:51.510 --> 00:46:57.896 that. So it was a good way to go. Sounds like a great, you need to get a 00:46:57.929 --> 00:47:01.327 drink. It's 00:47:01.360 --> 00:47:06.537 still rolling. Mhm. One of the things I remember I came here and worked at 00:47:06.570 --> 00:47:10.506 Channel eight in the late eighties and early nineties and it was cool the 00:47:10.539 --> 00:47:18.539 music did something called two of this program on that. Sure. Well we 00:47:18.920 --> 00:47:21.997 brought a fellow the best tuba teacher in the whole nation. In from the 00:47:22.030 --> 00:47:28.307 University of Illinois Uh in 1982 named Dan Pierantoni. And in fact, you 00:47:28.340 --> 00:47:33.447 know there was a there was a uh there was a contract out on my life in 00:47:33.480 --> 00:47:38.376 Illinois I think because I brought the top teacher, trumpet teacher and 00:47:38.409 --> 00:47:42.166 the top tube a teacher in the nation from the University of Illinois and 00:47:42.199 --> 00:47:48.686 the top musicologist that year from southern Illinois all to A. S. U. And 00:47:48.719 --> 00:47:51.827 I was told by one of my friends when we were doing a from Illinois that 00:47:51.860 --> 00:47:57.037 when we were doing a uh a accreditation review he said I suggest you don't 00:47:57.070 --> 00:48:01.947 go to Illinois uh Because they'll be after you. This even made the 00:48:01.980 --> 00:48:05.517 headlines of the Chicago tribune because the university of Illinois was 00:48:05.550 --> 00:48:10.336 having great difficulty keeping their faculty. But parent only came here 00:48:10.369 --> 00:48:16.086 and he started this and and uh it's just the most fun thing because they 00:48:16.119 --> 00:48:21.166 do a whole series of evenings all around Halloween. Uh And sometimes with 00:48:21.199 --> 00:48:24.887 costumes some not and so sample Afeyan who is equally as good after 00:48:24.920 --> 00:48:30.736 Pierantoni left. Uh They do all these different brass and tuba concerts 00:48:30.769 --> 00:48:33.396 and uh, you know, who would ever think you'd want to go here on the 00:48:33.429 --> 00:48:38.467 evening of october but they spiced it up so you know that it's just 00:48:38.500 --> 00:48:43.796 intriguing and fun and he's kept up the tradition. So it's uh, it's, it's 00:48:43.829 --> 00:48:46.236 a fun thing. 00:48:46.269 --> 00:48:51.847 It seems to be something unique anyway. I don't know what other schools or 00:48:51.880 --> 00:48:59.747 something like that before. Um let's see. Mhm. When you came here, did you 00:48:59.780 --> 00:49:07.546 plan on making Arizona State University, your final career or you 00:49:07.579 --> 00:49:13.967 know, uh I had not moved a lot, but in my first years I moved pretty 00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:17.046 frequently with the high school jobs and so forth. But I've been at 00:49:17.079 --> 00:49:20.256 Eastern New Mexico University 10 years and then at west texas state seven 00:49:20.289 --> 00:49:26.796 , But I was only like 43 years old and I didn't know if I would like it, I 00:49:26.829 --> 00:49:31.037 didn't know if I would stay. Uh and in fact I even took the optional 00:49:31.070 --> 00:49:36.026 retirement plan rather than the state plan because I had to draw my money 00:49:36.059 --> 00:49:44.059 out of two states, you know, because I moved uh but uh there wasn't much 00:49:44.429 --> 00:49:51.416 doubt at all after I had been here a little while as I saw just moving up 00:49:51.449 --> 00:49:57.927 like we had dreamed of and almost exceeding our dreams that, that, you 00:49:57.960 --> 00:50:03.586 know, where else would I go, where would that be? You know? And uh, I had 00:50:03.619 --> 00:50:08.456 contacts as everybody does from other schools and and so forth. And as our 00:50:08.489 --> 00:50:15.537 reputation flourished, why naturally those things occur. But it just, 00:50:15.570 --> 00:50:20.606 there really wasn't any thought I ever had about, about going anywhere 00:50:20.639 --> 00:50:25.396 else after I got here. And, and, and after I assembled the faculty that I 00:50:25.429 --> 00:50:29.126 had, that was so inspirational to me to be around. And the quality of 00:50:29.159 --> 00:50:33.177 those kids that were coming in here, just top flight from all over the 00:50:33.210 --> 00:50:37.077 nation. And then we got our facilities. Well, why would you go anywhere 00:50:37.110 --> 00:50:42.887 else? You know? So although I had no, no idea that I would finish my 00:50:42.920 --> 00:50:49.427 career here, uh, I hadn't been here long before. I knew that. 00:50:49.460 --> 00:50:54.967 Did you see a change in, in students over the years? Well, the students 00:50:55.000 --> 00:51:01.416 come mind blowingly more talented all the time. You just don't think they 00:51:01.449 --> 00:51:06.537 can get better and they do, uh, coming out of the public school programs 00:51:06.570 --> 00:51:10.747 or the graduate students that are coming in here now to study with certain 00:51:10.780 --> 00:51:18.376 teachers, you know, and so forth. Um, and, and I believe that I see a much 00:51:18.409 --> 00:51:26.409 more serious attitude towards music making. Uh, I think in 1977 we had 00:51:26.409 --> 00:51:29.756 quite a lot of that, but first of all, they didn't bring as much to the 00:51:29.789 --> 00:51:36.907 table. The talent wise or at least, uh, their, their previous training had 00:51:36.940 --> 00:51:42.816 not brought them to the level that we, we would hope and I saw that just 00:51:42.849 --> 00:51:48.327 continue to escalate. But in addition to that, and in in tandem with that 00:51:48.360 --> 00:51:54.956 was the issue of a much more serious approach to their careers and to 00:51:54.989 --> 00:52:00.657 music making. One of the things we tried to do was to weed out those kids 00:52:00.690 --> 00:52:05.796 that clearly had no business being in music, you know, for their benefit 00:52:05.829 --> 00:52:12.657 as well as ours. And so we instigated a uh an audition system which wasn't 00:52:12.690 --> 00:52:17.717 in place when I came here, anybody that wanted to could major in music, 00:52:17.750 --> 00:52:21.387 and a lot of kids majored in music that just had a wonderful sing along 00:52:21.420 --> 00:52:27.546 and happy experience in high school choir who had no talent and who really 00:52:27.579 --> 00:52:32.956 were doing themselves such a disservice, you know, to come and try because 00:52:32.989 --> 00:52:37.907 they clearly could not succeed and not only that, but then it took up 00:52:37.940 --> 00:52:43.936 spaces in the studios and all, you know, that kept others out. And so 00:52:43.969 --> 00:52:48.137 although we made sure that, as I said, we never going to standardize 00:52:48.170 --> 00:52:53.637 ourselves out of business by being so selective that, you know, we get the 00:52:53.670 --> 00:52:59.526 reputation that nobody can get in, but we begin to elevate the level by 00:52:59.559 --> 00:53:04.497 because we did turn a lot of students down and we did it gently and we did 00:53:04.530 --> 00:53:09.316 it kindly, but we would say this is just not for you, you know, we know 00:53:09.349 --> 00:53:13.396 you love music, you know, we know it's in your heart and it will be all 00:53:13.429 --> 00:53:17.606 your life and we hope it will be and that you'll keep singing or keep 00:53:17.639 --> 00:53:22.836 playing, but but you know, this is not, this is not the thing you ought to 00:53:22.869 --> 00:53:27.747 pursue as a career and then that left room for better and better students. 00:53:27.780 --> 00:53:33.896 And is that and that feeds on itself, the quality feeds on itself. And as 00:53:33.929 --> 00:53:38.907 a result of that, we just escalated our level of kids that were coming in 00:53:38.940 --> 00:53:42.637 more and more and the better they are, the more serious they are about it 00:53:42.670 --> 00:53:47.256 , you know? So that's kind of how that evolved. And we did an awful lot of 00:53:47.289 --> 00:53:53.977 students a service by encouraging them not to major in music because what 00:53:54.010 --> 00:53:57.517 happened usually they'd come in last a year or two and then they knew it 00:53:57.550 --> 00:54:02.967 wasn't for them, but they had wasted a year or two, you know, so it's not 00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:07.577 an easy thing to do. But if you're honest, you must do that in a music 00:54:07.610 --> 00:54:12.097 school. You hear that more and more public schools are cutting back on 00:54:12.130 --> 00:54:15.856 music and arts programs. How do you see that affecting the students that 00:54:15.889 --> 00:54:20.546 will be coming? Oh, I've worried about this my whole life. When my 00:54:20.579 --> 00:54:26.657 Children were in school in Port Alice New Mexico in the 1960s, this the 00:54:26.690 --> 00:54:30.517 board came up and was going to cut back the music program. And I was down 00:54:30.550 --> 00:54:35.936 there waging battle, you know, holding forth trying to convince people 00:54:35.969 --> 00:54:39.956 that the arts have validity and that they fill a youngster's life up and 00:54:39.989 --> 00:54:47.447 they go on and on and on, you know, and so this really isn't new. Uh, it's 00:54:47.480 --> 00:54:53.387 tiresome that somehow people don't get the message that music and the arts 00:54:53.420 --> 00:54:57.017 are not a frill, you know, and I'm not going to get on a soapbox here 00:54:57.050 --> 00:55:03.916 because we'd be here for two hours, uh, or six. Uh, but uh, yes, it's also 00:55:03.949 --> 00:55:09.236 always worrisome, but we do battle. My wife is an elementary music teacher 00:55:09.269 --> 00:55:15.936 in the Kyrie in district and she, it went to every board meeting last year 00:55:15.969 --> 00:55:22.197 , every study session that they had, every budget session that they had. I 00:55:22.230 --> 00:55:27.276 mean, I hardly saw her because she was so determined to know what's going 00:55:27.309 --> 00:55:32.796 on and to try to refute it and to try to instill in them the, the values 00:55:32.829 --> 00:55:39.376 of what they had in that district and was successful to some extent. Uh, 00:55:39.409 --> 00:55:44.597 but this is a, this is a never ending battle because the arts and music 00:55:44.630 --> 00:55:48.327 particularly seemed to always be out there on the plate if somebody's got 00:55:48.360 --> 00:55:54.137 a needing to saw it off budgetarily, you know, and so what we do is accept 00:55:54.170 --> 00:55:57.617 the fact that that's a battle we're always going to have to fight, that 00:55:57.650 --> 00:56:01.566 we're never gonna give in, you know, and then we're gonna keep on, keep at 00:56:01.599 --> 00:56:07.347 it and do everything we possibly can to refute it. Uh, now, I know it 00:56:07.380 --> 00:56:11.477 happens on occasion, you know, when prop 13 came through in California 00:56:11.510 --> 00:56:16.856 almost wiped out the arts completely. Uh, you know, just just scuttle the 00:56:16.889 --> 00:56:21.327 school music programs, but they gradually work their way back, you know, 00:56:21.360 --> 00:56:26.227 one step on the ladder at a time, but this is not new, but it's 00:56:26.260 --> 00:56:32.887 unfortunate, but I can tell you one thing we ain't given end. Uh, we were 00:56:32.920 --> 00:56:37.927 gonna remain steadfast. I go to some of those board meetings still, uh, 00:56:37.960 --> 00:56:42.086 you know, and I've been asked to come and speak to various groups or 00:56:42.119 --> 00:56:46.486 various board meetings or study groups, you know, and, and I run and do it 00:56:46.519 --> 00:56:51.077 every time I get a chance. So it's a never ending battle. But it isn't 00:56:51.110 --> 00:56:54.526 what it isn't one we're gonna lose and it isn't one we're going to stop 00:56:54.559 --> 00:56:59.407 fighting. Do you see it at the university level where the emphasis now is 00:56:59.440 --> 00:57:04.117 on the research university and all of those things that bring in the huge 00:57:04.150 --> 00:57:09.097 grants is the School of Music out. 00:57:09.130 --> 00:57:15.827 How candid would you like for me to be? Well, 00:57:15.860 --> 00:57:20.756 I'm worried about what's going on right now. Uh, as far as the arts are 00:57:20.789 --> 00:57:26.307 concerned, I mean, I don't I don't argue with Michael Crow about what he's 00:57:26.340 --> 00:57:31.697 viewing is important at this point in time and I I'm sure he's a 21st 00:57:31.730 --> 00:57:36.296 century president that has some agendas that other people wouldn't have 00:57:36.329 --> 00:57:43.537 had 10 years ago and all of that, but I worry about whether he really has 00:57:43.570 --> 00:57:49.657 a sense of the value that the arts bring to the university and as they 00:57:49.690 --> 00:57:56.407 have done for 40 years, at least, uh, for many, many years there are lots 00:57:56.440 --> 00:58:01.086 of people on this campus who would tell you, who aren't in music that as 00:58:01.119 --> 00:58:04.157 they go around the nation. The first thing people would talk about was 00:58:04.190 --> 00:58:09.736 their music school out here. And, and in many cases that was the case, you 00:58:09.769 --> 00:58:16.686 know, that, that we were known for music and ultimately for the arts. And 00:58:16.719 --> 00:58:21.997 , and uh, many back when they were trying to, I don't know, in the 00:58:22.030 --> 00:58:27.177 eighties, the regions were trying to identify what the usa on excel at and 00:58:27.210 --> 00:58:31.776 what a s, you ought to excel that you remember all of that. And of course 00:58:31.809 --> 00:58:35.296 fine arts was right up there with the issue and it wasn't with you of a, 00:58:35.329 --> 00:58:41.126 which they really didn't like at all. And I found over the years that with 00:58:41.159 --> 00:58:48.686 most of my administrators, uh, we, we always got our fair share and, and 00:58:48.719 --> 00:58:53.887 our fair share of appreciation as well as a demonstration of it by 00:58:53.920 --> 00:59:01.736 whatever resources that we could get. Uh, and uh, I think carl Dannon felt 00:59:01.769 --> 00:59:09.769 as a provost, I felt like Russ nelson was of course a very uh, sympathetic 00:59:09.769 --> 00:59:16.347 person to the arts. Benita served on our, uh, board of friends of music. I 00:59:16.380 --> 00:59:22.517 thought he always had music in the arts as a, as a priority. And, and, and 00:59:22.550 --> 00:59:25.447 that had a lot to do then with my being able to go out and get those 00:59:25.480 --> 00:59:30.206 faculties because some of them didn't come cheap obviously, you know, but 00:59:30.239 --> 00:59:37.787 that was that was our story and and then uh and and and and then on down 00:59:37.820 --> 00:59:43.177 as we and I know back President Durham before I came was a big arts art 00:59:43.210 --> 00:59:48.847 supporter. Uh, and I don't know about Suada that he was so much, but he 00:59:48.880 --> 00:59:54.247 didn't hurt us I don't think. And so we've had some pretty good 00:59:54.280 --> 00:59:59.677 administrative support. Latiker I felt was it was a pretty good supporter 00:59:59.710 --> 01:00:05.376 I think milt at least, certainly has always been sympathetic to the arts. 01:00:05.409 --> 01:00:07.956 I'll tell you the best provost I ever had. Would you like to know who 01:00:07.989 --> 01:00:11.376 that was. Elmer Gooding. 01:00:11.409 --> 01:00:17.606 Albert Gooding was the stand in for about four different times. And Elmer 01:00:17.639 --> 01:00:23.276 Gooding and I fought tooth and toenail to get him permanently appointed 01:00:23.309 --> 01:00:28.706 because he I thought he was fair, I thought he listened, I thought he knew 01:00:28.739 --> 01:00:34.566 this university inside out and I felt like and he certainly was not 01:00:34.599 --> 01:00:39.276 favored towards the arts, but he certainly was was there when you needed 01:00:39.309 --> 01:00:44.247 him. And the only reason I gave, I considered to serve on the board of the 01:00:44.280 --> 01:00:49.287 retirees association was because Elmer twisted my arm and you know, and I 01:00:49.320 --> 01:00:53.517 felt if anybody else had asked me, I probably wouldn't have done it, but 01:00:53.550 --> 01:00:57.896 he certainly was, in my opinion, the strongest provost I ever had. But 01:00:57.929 --> 01:01:01.686 that doesn't, that's not putting the rest of them down. Uh, you know, or 01:01:01.719 --> 01:01:06.887 anything like that. But, so overall, I think the administrative support in 01:01:06.920 --> 01:01:13.967 general was there. I'm not sure now. I'm not sure about what the arts are 01:01:14.000 --> 01:01:19.177 kind of a, an afterthought with President Crow. Now he might, I would hope 01:01:19.210 --> 01:01:24.747 he would take great issue with me on that, you know. But I know that he 01:01:24.780 --> 01:01:31.856 has some other priorities that are so, uh, hi with him, uh, that I don't 01:01:31.889 --> 01:01:36.896 hear him talking a lot about the arts and, and I worry about that. And I 01:01:36.929 --> 01:01:42.276 know some of our people worry about that, you know, So where we go from 01:01:42.309 --> 01:01:45.887 here? I don't know. I have to tell you that. I'm glad I'm not in there 01:01:45.920 --> 01:01:50.657 doing a battle right now. You know, I always said that as director of the 01:01:50.690 --> 01:01:54.787 School of Music and I gave a speech to the texas, Music educators 01:01:54.820 --> 01:01:59.697 Association a few years ago, all the directors and, And, and, and I said, 01:01:59.730 --> 01:02:07.526 you know, I always viewed administration as, 80, 20, 80 80% Problems and 01:02:07.559 --> 01:02:12.727 junk all day and 20% maybe if you're lucky that you can have vision and 01:02:12.760 --> 01:02:17.126 positives and that's a pretty fair Assessment, I think really, I mean, you 01:02:17.159 --> 01:02:20.916 know, not that it's all terrible, but you're dealing with problems 80% of 01:02:20.949 --> 01:02:28.006 the day. Uh, and uh, and I don't know if it would be that good now, let's 01:02:28.039 --> 01:02:30.767 see, 01:02:30.800 --> 01:02:35.756 talked about a lot of things here, but let's are there any special things 01:02:35.789 --> 01:02:40.836 that any special events or memories of things that happened here, that 01:02:40.869 --> 01:02:44.967 you'd want to be sure and talk about? 01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:49.367 Oh, I'm not sure 01:02:49.400 --> 01:02:53.827 one of the things that I was very proud of at the time was forming a 01:02:53.860 --> 01:02:58.827 friends of music board that was very supportive of us. And then we 01:02:58.860 --> 01:03:03.307 solicited members, you know, and helped us with scholarships and had golf 01:03:03.340 --> 01:03:07.956 tournaments and other things, which was a good way to get community 01:03:07.989 --> 01:03:11.867 involved. And I was always very proud of that. I'm not sure that's 01:03:11.900 --> 01:03:15.787 functioning as it did at this time. I don't I don't know, but I do 01:03:15.820 --> 01:03:20.706 remember that was very gratifying to me too, have a community support 01:03:20.739 --> 01:03:28.739 group that I started it. I just I felt we needed that we needed that 01:03:29.570 --> 01:03:35.217 external presence and that external help. And as a result, I, you know, 01:03:35.250 --> 01:03:40.097 well, the person that helped me the most was Catherine Gammage 01:03:40.130 --> 01:03:44.686 in getting that started, because I mean, Catherine Gammage knew everybody 01:03:44.719 --> 01:03:50.157 that was anybody or anybody that was there, I don't know, you know? And so 01:03:50.190 --> 01:03:56.657 she and I she was working at the at the development office and she and I 01:03:56.690 --> 01:04:01.796 conspired about people that we ought to sit down and talk with that might 01:04:01.829 --> 01:04:06.856 have an interest in this as in addition to helping us two steering oars 01:04:06.889 --> 01:04:13.316 toward others who might have an interest in this. And so together we spent 01:04:13.349 --> 01:04:19.436 a lot of time visiting with various people, mostly people of means that 01:04:19.469 --> 01:04:25.267 she could identify that we talked to and all who thought it was a good 01:04:25.300 --> 01:04:32.497 idea, some who didn't want to be active, but who put us onto others. And 01:04:32.530 --> 01:04:39.836 so it took me two years to get it launched. So in 1979 we formed it, we 01:04:39.869 --> 01:04:45.236 formed our first board, put out our first brochure of our membership 01:04:45.269 --> 01:04:51.887 brochure and the various levels of, of involvement. And, and it went from 01:04:51.920 --> 01:04:56.956 there and we had all kinds of special concerts featuring our students, you 01:04:56.989 --> 01:05:02.327 know, and that kind of thing, special evenings for friends of music, uh, 01:05:02.360 --> 01:05:07.256 where we uh, featured in those kids that had received scholarships from 01:05:07.289 --> 01:05:11.467 friends of Music. And then, as I said, we had one fellow that was a master 01:05:11.500 --> 01:05:16.896 running a golf tournament And he made about 25 to 30,000 a year for 01:05:16.929 --> 01:05:22.816 several years on that. And so it was very effective and, and whether we'd 01:05:22.849 --> 01:05:30.137 raised a lot of money or not, it was a, it was a very good uh, canal into 01:05:30.170 --> 01:05:38.170 community and helped us become much wider known and got a lot of pretty 01:05:39.280 --> 01:05:43.546 significant community people involved, like I said, Ready Campbell served 01:05:43.579 --> 01:05:45.887 on their board for a while, but Nita nelson served on our board for a 01:05:45.920 --> 01:05:51.336 while, uh, many others. And so that was, that was a very successful thing 01:05:51.369 --> 01:05:58.956 that I felt we needed. And I was glad that we did it. 01:05:58.989 --> 01:06:02.916 Mhm, Do you think that the community has appreciated what the school of 01:06:02.949 --> 01:06:10.949 music has offers to them here? Yes and no. Uh I have been, I've heard it 01:06:12.800 --> 01:06:17.356 said that the school of music is the best kept secret in phoenix in terms 01:06:17.389 --> 01:06:24.727 of what you could get high quality for free. You know, people pay a lot of 01:06:24.760 --> 01:06:28.066 money to go here, the phoenix symphony or whatever. And I would tell you 01:06:28.099 --> 01:06:31.267 right now that I would put rsu symphony up against the phoenix symphony 01:06:31.300 --> 01:06:36.586 any day of the week right now. And so yes, we do get large crowds for for 01:06:36.619 --> 01:06:44.619 a lot of those programs and yes, I think there is a a constituency out 01:06:45.719 --> 01:06:51.717 there that really does know the quality of what's going on. But I have to 01:06:51.750 --> 01:06:54.407 tell you that, I think we're much better known nationally than we are 01:06:54.440 --> 01:06:59.986 locally. You know, I think that's not necessarily unusual, but the local 01:07:00.019 --> 01:07:05.986 kid, you know, it's just over there they issue uh and and naturally I 01:07:06.019 --> 01:07:12.916 think you could you could canvas For instance the what five, music 01:07:12.949 --> 01:07:17.126 executives of schools of music across the nation that are members of 01:07:17.159 --> 01:07:22.157 National Association of Schools of Music. And I think they would identify 01:07:22.190 --> 01:07:28.526 our school in the top 10, both private and you know, I mean U. S. News and 01:07:28.559 --> 01:07:33.236 world reports had us in there very high for years and but I don't put a 01:07:33.269 --> 01:07:39.796 lot of stock in there, but the I would say most of them would have a sc 01:07:39.829 --> 01:07:44.077 school of music in the top 10 and I have high respect and I'll tell you 01:07:44.110 --> 01:07:48.756 why because of the faculty we brought in here, their internationally known 01:07:48.789 --> 01:07:55.686 and they're impacting people, you know, and so going to those conventions 01:07:55.719 --> 01:08:01.776 always, we had high, high respect, you know, from everybody and they, and 01:08:01.809 --> 01:08:04.836 and many of them and want to refer their students on here for graduate 01:08:04.869 --> 01:08:10.956 work. You know, that that was a natural thing. So we probably much better 01:08:10.989 --> 01:08:16.807 known and appreciated outside of the community than we maybe within. Uh, 01:08:16.840 --> 01:08:23.616 and we always kept fighting. But you know, you see all these things in the 01:08:23.649 --> 01:08:27.427 newspaper about all these other things that are going on, but you hardly 01:08:27.460 --> 01:08:30.906 ever see anything about school of music. And it isn't because we don't 01:08:30.939 --> 01:08:35.696 have some folks over there cranking out the stuff uh, for some reason it 01:08:35.729 --> 01:08:41.557 just doesn't seem to be good copy. Uh, and so I think it has a lot to do 01:08:41.590 --> 01:08:48.446 with the local versus the national, that's my perspective because you well 01:08:48.479 --> 01:08:53.267 , you know, we've, well they are charging now for faculty recitals and 01:08:53.300 --> 01:08:56.887 that kind of thing and and there's really been a lot of debate about that 01:08:56.920 --> 01:09:03.527 , but we have always kind of viewed it as a service to the community 01:09:03.560 --> 01:09:08.046 because there are tons and tons and tons of white haired people in those 01:09:08.079 --> 01:09:13.487 audiences that I don't think really could afford to go to other $20 and 01:09:13.520 --> 01:09:21.137 $25 events, you know, and so with our major ensemble things and our big, 01:09:21.170 --> 01:09:25.427 we call, we charge a little for the christmas holiday concert and, and, 01:09:25.460 --> 01:09:29.847 and so forth. But uh, pretty much we've kept it free and, and that's been 01:09:29.880 --> 01:09:35.437 a debate over the years about should we, or shouldn't we charge? But our 01:09:35.470 --> 01:09:41.737 philosophy has held that we should, we should, if we can, we should 01:09:41.770 --> 01:09:46.937 probably, and so you see, and you get into the debate of the trade off of 01:09:46.970 --> 01:09:51.546 how much money would we make versus how much crowd would we lose? And 01:09:51.579 --> 01:09:56.147 would we be better to have a half a house or a full house kind of thing. 01:09:56.180 --> 01:10:01.586 So, uh, we, uh, to, to date the decision for the major ensemble 01:10:01.619 --> 01:10:06.177 performances has been no, we're not gonna charge. I can't answer the 01:10:06.210 --> 01:10:13.326 question, but that's the philosophy that we've held to so far. No, 01:10:13.359 --> 01:10:21.359 no, no. And and we, we have, we have discussed that, we have discussed 01:10:21.810 --> 01:10:26.256 that on numerous occasions. Um, were there any challenges that you've had 01:10:26.289 --> 01:10:29.887 during your career here, of things that you want to accomplish, that maybe 01:10:29.920 --> 01:10:34.427 you weren't able to, Well, 01:10:34.460 --> 01:10:39.826 The early in the early 90s budget crisis almost made me quit? 01:10:39.859 --> 01:10:47.859 Uh, it was so serious. uh, my day then was 99% and one, you know, if that 01:10:49.840 --> 01:10:57.187 with the terrible, terrible budget crisis that we went through and uh, I 01:10:57.220 --> 01:11:02.256 lost three faculty positions during that time of one only instrument 01:11:02.289 --> 01:11:09.126 teachers, you know, who's gonna teach flute, the janitor, you know? Ah, 01:11:09.159 --> 01:11:15.916 and, and, and that was, that was such a, such a devastating thing uh, to 01:11:15.949 --> 01:11:20.987 me and for our faculty toe and my advisory council to always be meeting 01:11:21.020 --> 01:11:26.227 and figuring out how we were going to survive with the next wave of cuts. 01:11:26.260 --> 01:11:32.616 You know, when 92% or something of your budget is faculty salaries and 01:11:32.649 --> 01:11:35.326 they say cut, 01:11:35.359 --> 01:11:41.416 you know, And you, and you barely even getting by on the 8% for operating 01:11:41.449 --> 01:11:49.116 , and you know, uh, you just can't exist And uh, and, and it's so easy for 01:11:49.149 --> 01:11:52.376 the administration of the legislature or whoever was picking on us at the 01:11:52.409 --> 01:11:55.927 time to say cut, 01:11:55.960 --> 01:11:59.746 you may have to cut four more percent, you know, second semester or the 01:11:59.779 --> 01:12:04.126 midyear cuts. We had some midyear cuts that were just devastating. I mean 01:12:04.159 --> 01:12:10.307 , here we had, we had ta is committed for the year and we got lost half 01:12:10.340 --> 01:12:18.340 our budget, you know, so nothing in my opinion, uh, compares in answer to 01:12:19.420 --> 01:12:25.706 your question to what we encountered then, I, I really gave serious 01:12:25.739 --> 01:12:32.496 thought to going back into teaching then because my days were so grievous 01:12:32.529 --> 01:12:39.496 because everything that we had to do was just so crushing to us. And yet I 01:12:39.529 --> 01:12:44.666 felt, you know, I'm just crusty enough and I can go in there and bang on 01:12:44.699 --> 01:12:50.166 their desk and you know, and and knocked the lamp over now and then, you 01:12:50.199 --> 01:12:54.336 know, and what are they gonna do fire me be my guest, you know, and I 01:12:54.369 --> 01:12:57.687 thought if a new person comes in here, they'd just be run over like a 01:12:57.720 --> 01:13:04.586 steam roller, you know, so I ground it out and we survived and things 01:13:04.619 --> 01:13:09.196 finally began to get better and I got those positions back ultimately. 01:13:09.229 --> 01:13:15.996 Finally. Ah, But but that there's nothing over my 19 years of 01:13:16.029 --> 01:13:21.387 administration or my 25 years on the faculty that compared with that, with 01:13:21.420 --> 01:13:28.166 that budget crunch, I will never forget it. And and I think it, I think it 01:13:28.199 --> 01:13:35.626 took a toll on me, you know, physically emotionally because you can't, you 01:13:35.659 --> 01:13:40.446 can't love what you do and what you're doing, who you're doing it with to 01:13:40.479 --> 01:13:46.456 the extent that I did and not take it very personally when you see things 01:13:46.489 --> 01:13:52.506 happen that are going to, to hurt people, to cut programs to hurt what you 01:13:52.539 --> 01:13:59.376 built, you know, and uh, so that, that was the king of of my, my 01:13:59.409 --> 01:14:05.307 challenges, all the others buildings curriculum, you know, we, we, we, we 01:14:05.340 --> 01:14:10.376 , we fought those battles, we'd win some and we'd lose some, but there was 01:14:10.409 --> 01:14:16.206 nothing ever like that during the time I was the director. 01:14:16.239 --> 01:14:21.376 So that was an easy question to answer. 01:14:21.409 --> 01:14:25.456 We talked about the people that you've worked with here, are there any 01:14:25.489 --> 01:14:30.756 mention quite a few not to mention that important time here? Well, you 01:14:30.789 --> 01:14:34.706 meet people I worked for our people that worked that worked under me or 01:14:34.739 --> 01:14:42.739 both? Well, uh, I was always very grateful to my three deans, jewish 01:14:43.739 --> 01:14:49.927 Heller and uh, Sy Rosen and then bob Wells, who I worked with for a couple 01:14:49.960 --> 01:14:53.857 of years. Uh, they were all good and they were all supportive and they 01:14:53.890 --> 01:14:57.717 listened to me and they, I think represented me well with the 01:14:57.750 --> 01:15:02.626 administration. I want to be cared that I always wanted to be a separate 01:15:02.659 --> 01:15:05.727 college of Music. 01:15:05.760 --> 01:15:10.977 And there are some schools around the nation that have that because when 01:15:11.010 --> 01:15:17.187 you're in a, in a college of Fine Arts, you never have direct access to 01:15:17.220 --> 01:15:20.506 the real decision makers. 01:15:20.539 --> 01:15:25.166 You never know for sure how your dean represented you on something that 01:15:25.199 --> 01:15:29.086 was really important to you. He could come back and say Bill didn't want 01:15:29.119 --> 01:15:33.727 to do that, you know? And he could have said, George wants this, wants to 01:15:33.760 --> 01:15:36.557 do this, but I don't think it's a good idea. But what do you think? You 01:15:36.590 --> 01:15:41.336 know, and I'm not saying they did that, but I'm saying that I was very 01:15:41.369 --> 01:15:46.427 envious of some of my colleagues around the University of Colorado, uh, 01:15:46.460 --> 01:15:54.046 and several others that had direct access to the real decision makers And 01:15:54.079 --> 01:15:58.326 our, our program with 800 music majors and the science faculty we had was 01:15:58.359 --> 01:16:04.397 certainly larger than most of those schools that had independent status. 01:16:04.430 --> 01:16:08.086 Whether would have been better off or not, I don't know, and it's really 01:16:08.119 --> 01:16:13.597 not relevant other than the fact that I do think by and large we were 01:16:13.630 --> 01:16:20.786 represented. Well, uh, the faculty that I brought in, uh, I don't want to 01:16:20.819 --> 01:16:26.956 really get into listing of all, but we just, we almost always made great 01:16:26.989 --> 01:16:32.397 hires and that was for two reasons. One, we sought them out and recruited 01:16:32.430 --> 01:16:38.196 him and to the administration practice to go get him 01:16:38.229 --> 01:16:42.416 something that most of the colleges are working on now is having their own 01:16:42.449 --> 01:16:47.496 development departments and doing their own fundraising. Did you 01:16:47.529 --> 01:16:55.107 only only in a peripheral way. Ah, Really the only thing we were doing now 01:16:55.140 --> 01:17:00.406 , I've been out of administration 10 years this year. I got out in 96. Of 01:17:00.439 --> 01:17:05.097 course I stayed on the faculty another six. But um, 01:17:05.130 --> 01:17:08.746 at that time, the biggest thing we were doing was trying to raise more 01:17:08.779 --> 01:17:14.427 scholarship money and to keep us competitive. I was not having to raise 01:17:14.460 --> 01:17:20.767 our operating budget. I was not being expected to get out and you know, do 01:17:20.800 --> 01:17:26.467 a lot of that that the people in there and those jobs are now, I know, 01:17:26.500 --> 01:17:31.567 wayne bailey, my, our current director, you know, he, he's challenged with 01:17:31.600 --> 01:17:37.187 his, his, his bob wells, the dean with is the university coming up with a 01:17:37.220 --> 01:17:42.656 sizable percent of their, of their funding to operate now, you know, as 01:17:42.689 --> 01:17:49.097 the legislative appropriations have continued to diminish over the years. 01:17:49.130 --> 01:17:53.607 The universities had no choice. I've been impressed and with what laddie 01:17:53.640 --> 01:17:59.626 and I guess what you're doing, Crow's doing now too to raise a lot of 01:17:59.659 --> 01:18:02.876 private money. I think they've made a big headway with regard to 01:18:02.909 --> 01:18:07.227 convincing people that state universities need money. And when I was an 01:18:07.260 --> 01:18:11.046 administrator, people really didn't even think about that. You know, you 01:18:11.079 --> 01:18:17.166 get state money, you know, and so there's no reason for you to no reason 01:18:17.199 --> 01:18:21.366 for us to give you your our money because you get state money. But I, I do 01:18:21.399 --> 01:18:27.006 believe that Laddie and Michael Crowe have have changed the mindset of the 01:18:27.039 --> 01:18:31.296 community or the, you know, the public at large about that. I think 01:18:31.329 --> 01:18:36.336 they've been very successful. Um, I don't think I would like to have to 01:18:36.369 --> 01:18:43.366 raise money. Imagine if you were building a building. 01:18:43.399 --> 01:18:46.786 Well, we did at that time actually, you know, we have cats in the hall, 01:18:46.819 --> 01:18:52.836 which is, Was contributed $2 million dollars by David Katzen. And so we 01:18:52.869 --> 01:18:57.987 had some others. Even then we were doing that. Yes. In fact, we raised 01:18:58.020 --> 01:19:03.206 Well over $1 million dollars to help us supplement the needs that we 01:19:03.239 --> 01:19:06.727 needed for that building, primarily equipment Because, you know, grand 01:19:06.760 --> 01:19:12.916 pianos don't just sashay in the door for 50 cents, you know, and so I did 01:19:12.949 --> 01:19:19.427 a lot of it in that sense. But I had a, the specific gold with a specific 01:19:19.460 --> 01:19:26.786 timeline, you know, and it wasn't for our existence. It was only to help 01:19:26.819 --> 01:19:32.376 us do better what we, but I think there's a lot of pressure now on school 01:19:32.409 --> 01:19:37.126 directors and deans to raise an enormous amount of their budget. And I 01:19:37.159 --> 01:19:41.296 don't think I would like to do that. I, I I like to center my time on 01:19:41.329 --> 01:19:47.477 curriculum, on music making on faculty, on students, on the things that I 01:19:47.510 --> 01:19:50.857 thought that's what music administration was about when I got into 01:19:50.890 --> 01:19:54.887 unfortunately remained that pretty much while I was there. But I don't 01:19:54.920 --> 01:19:59.517 think it would be much fun. Now, is there anything particularly that you 01:19:59.550 --> 01:20:03.576 did during the time you were here that you want to be remembered for? Well 01:20:03.609 --> 01:20:07.086 , I think the thing that I will be remembered more foremost is the 01:20:07.119 --> 01:20:13.836 building, I think everybody, at least in the school of music, knows that 01:20:13.869 --> 01:20:17.656 they wouldn't have those wonderful facilities had I not, you know, waged 01:20:17.689 --> 01:20:24.477 battle and manipulated and done whatever else I had to do to get that. Ah 01:20:24.510 --> 01:20:32.510 , I think the two things that, and I think the precedent for setting an 01:20:33.539 --> 01:20:41.126 unwavering quest for top faculty, I don't believe that was the, that was 01:20:41.159 --> 01:20:46.576 the rule of thumb prior to my arrival in the, in the music program. And uh 01:20:46.609 --> 01:20:53.036 , so I would, I'm sure if you would about over there now and ask Faculty 01:20:53.069 --> 01:20:57.006 who of course are still there that I hired, which about probably 3/4 of 01:20:57.039 --> 01:21:01.927 them, I guess. Still, I'm guessing that those would be the two things they 01:21:01.960 --> 01:21:05.857 would say would be the most significant. We're getting space where we 01:21:05.890 --> 01:21:09.967 could really have a first class program and bringing in the faculty to 01:21:10.000 --> 01:21:13.177 ensure that it happened. 01:21:13.210 --> 01:21:17.237 Is there any particular memory you have of the time you were here? It's 01:21:17.270 --> 01:21:21.576 special to you. 01:21:21.609 --> 01:21:29.076 Mm hmm. 01:21:29.109 --> 01:21:33.076 Joy. 01:21:33.109 --> 01:21:35.977 Oh, 01:21:36.010 --> 01:21:39.777 I was so lucky to get this job. 01:21:39.810 --> 01:21:43.777 There were many, many people that would have loved to have had this job 01:21:43.810 --> 01:21:49.956 and I haven't a clue yet how I was fortunate enough to get it. 01:21:49.989 --> 01:21:52.277 But 01:21:52.310 --> 01:21:58.677 They're really other than the early 90s, there were really very few days 01:21:58.710 --> 01:22:03.777 that I didn't come up here and look forward to it. Uh, and there aren't 01:22:03.810 --> 01:22:06.737 all that many people in this world that can say that about what they get 01:22:06.770 --> 01:22:13.427 up and go do every day. You know, I was very lucky that I, uh, that I 01:22:13.460 --> 01:22:18.796 found music and music found me first of all, which opened the door for 01:22:18.829 --> 01:22:24.036 everything else we've talked about today. I was very lucky that I was able 01:22:24.069 --> 01:22:28.397 to Get into college and university teaching, which was my goal when I was 01:22:28.430 --> 01:22:35.506 25 years old. And, and, and then I was very lucky to, as I told you about 01:22:35.539 --> 01:22:40.777 geographical living in, in areas that I wanted to live in. But then 01:22:40.810 --> 01:22:48.366 specifically to come to this place, which had the potential. Unbelievable 01:22:48.399 --> 01:22:55.826 and uh, to have the joy of, I believe seeing a lot of that develop doesn't 01:22:55.859 --> 01:23:01.376 mean where, where we can, where we can still grow and still be better. But 01:23:01.409 --> 01:23:07.506 there was a real joy of being at A. S. U. And knowing that we had the 01:23:07.539 --> 01:23:13.876 potential to be great and that in many ways we became that and so I can't 01:23:13.909 --> 01:23:19.967 identify a specific thing, but in a general sense 01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:25.687 I came to work every day here, looking forward to it and having fun. And 01:23:25.720 --> 01:23:31.586 even when I was consumed with problems, uh it still was fun because it was 01:23:31.619 --> 01:23:38.956 a challenge solving them, you know, but, and and and and hopefully 01:23:38.989 --> 01:23:41.967 creating an environment 01:23:42.000 --> 01:23:46.906 that people were comfortable and like to work in and I believe most of the 01:23:46.939 --> 01:23:51.696 people over there would attest that that's how they felt during our years 01:23:51.729 --> 01:23:54.866 that I was, I was there and I'm not taking all the credit for that. But 01:23:54.899 --> 01:23:58.317 first of all I brought in, I was careful about who I brought in. Not only 01:23:58.350 --> 01:24:02.527 that they were great in their field, but they were decent human beings and 01:24:02.560 --> 01:24:05.756 I turned down some giants in their field on occasion because they were 01:24:05.789 --> 01:24:12.506 jerks, you know, we have a few of those in music. Uh and and uh so I was 01:24:12.539 --> 01:24:17.626 very careful about that because I wanted people that, that not only wanted 01:24:17.659 --> 01:24:21.256 to be here and we're great, but that really could get along and that would 01:24:21.289 --> 01:24:29.289 build that kind of spree decor up and you know, I picked on people I, we 01:24:30.229 --> 01:24:35.826 laughed at faculty meetings. We, you know, but, but over and above all 01:24:35.859 --> 01:24:41.286 they knew we were headed toward greatness and, and so I think there was an 01:24:41.319 --> 01:24:46.336 environment that not only created that joy for me, but for the people, 01:24:46.369 --> 01:24:50.517 they came to work every day here and I think and they've told me that many 01:24:50.550 --> 01:24:56.576 times how much, how much they appreciated being able to come up every day 01:24:56.609 --> 01:24:59.616 knowing they were going to be traded fairly, knowing they were going to be 01:24:59.649 --> 01:25:04.166 appreciated and knowing they were going to be encouraged. And so I guess I 01:25:04.199 --> 01:25:09.496 would have to say that maybe if I have any legacy, I'd like to think maybe 01:25:09.529 --> 01:25:13.756 it's that, mm hmm. 01:25:13.789 --> 01:25:17.597 What sort of advice do you give to young people today that are trying to 01:25:17.630 --> 01:25:25.357 decide what they want to do with their lives, cheers in music. You mean? 01:25:25.390 --> 01:25:32.517 Oh my You know, I don't know whether it's passed me by or not. Uh, to 01:25:32.550 --> 01:25:38.437 whether I'm capable of doing that. I am, I can tell you what I tell always 01:25:38.470 --> 01:25:42.076 told people in music whose parents said, don't do that. You can't make a 01:25:42.109 --> 01:25:47.256 living. You know, in all of that. 01:25:47.289 --> 01:25:51.656 If a youngster has an ability and a talent, 01:25:51.689 --> 01:25:57.357 I think they ought to go for it and then let the chips fall where they may. 01:25:57.390 --> 01:26:02.517 You know, If a violinist comes in here and there a fine player and, but 01:26:02.550 --> 01:26:06.006 people are saying, you can't make a living for every orchestra opening. 01:26:06.039 --> 01:26:13.076 There's 600 people that try for it, you know, or whatever I'm saying. So 01:26:13.109 --> 01:26:18.786 what if you achieve to the very highest level, the satisfaction of being 01:26:18.819 --> 01:26:23.006 the best you can be there, Okay. Maybe you won't make a living at that. 01:26:23.039 --> 01:26:25.437 Maybe you will have to end up doing something else, but you'll have an 01:26:25.470 --> 01:26:32.406 education, you know, and you can, you can at least pursue your dream. And 01:26:32.439 --> 01:26:36.666 we're we're music musicians are dreamers, kind of, you know, but that's 01:26:36.699 --> 01:26:41.656 part of what makes us creative, you know, and, and sometimes we're not 01:26:41.689 --> 01:26:47.727 realistic, but that's okay. But I always encourage, and that's why we set 01:26:47.760 --> 01:26:53.246 up that screening system, you know? So the people didn't waste their time 01:26:53.279 --> 01:26:56.607 dreaming of pursuing a dream. They couldn't even didn't even have a remote 01:26:56.640 --> 01:27:02.057 chance. Uh, so I would tell whether it's an engineer or whoever else go 01:27:02.090 --> 01:27:08.317 for it, you know, go for it and then see what happens. Because you never 01:27:08.350 --> 01:27:13.687 know. Now in our, for the kids, we turn out and teaching. My Lord, they 01:27:13.720 --> 01:27:18.006 can get jobs just galore. I mean, everybody's crying for music teachers, 01:27:18.039 --> 01:27:23.156 you know, now, I mean, it's so sparse. And so there isn't any doubt about 01:27:23.189 --> 01:27:27.467 that. If they if they wanna get a either a credential along with the 01:27:27.500 --> 01:27:32.217 performance degree or, and there's a great job market in, uh, in music 01:27:32.250 --> 01:27:36.536 therapy, we have a wonderful music therapy program over there that is 01:27:36.569 --> 01:27:39.796 totally respected throughout the whole health system, you know, in the 01:27:39.829 --> 01:27:45.256 phoenix valley and, and nationally, or, or jazz or whatever, that they 01:27:45.289 --> 01:27:50.317 ought to go for it. And, and I've had very few ever come back to me and 01:27:50.350 --> 01:27:56.546 say sorry, I did that. You know, maybe they ended up doing something else 01:27:56.579 --> 01:28:04.036 or doing music good nights were on the side or whatever. You know, I want 01:28:04.069 --> 01:28:09.159 to, I want to tell you one quick little story. Uh, and thatis