Conduct yourself accordingly: The Symphony of New Orleans
Concerted Efforts: The Symphony of New Orleans
Interview by Paul Oswell
The Symphony Of New Orleans (SONO) is a dedicated and largely volunteer group of musicians who devote their time and talent towards making great music. We talked Music and Artistic Director Calloway Cieslak off the podium to find out more and talk about their upcoming season.
Hello, thank you for talking to Out All Day. You’re coming up to the 2024-25 season for SONO, how are the rehearsals all going?
Thank you so much for having us! Rehearsals have been going so well - we have some really exciting and substantial music for this season, and our players have been doing some truly wonderful work on it. We've also been fortunate enough to expand our string section recently, so it's been really satisfying to get some of those lush symphonic sounds in rehearsals. We are still looking for more violins and bassists!
Tell us what the new season program is, and perhaps why the pieces were chosen, or any specific themes that you’re exploring with the music?
Our next program is on Thursday, December 12th, at 7:30 PM at Roussel Hall on Loyola's campus, and we're playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with guest pianist Qifan Wu, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, and a brand new composition called swedish steve's snowblock sinfonietta by living local composer, Dylan Trần. We're calling the concert 'A Winter Rhapsody' and it explores a lot of different approaches to the seasonal celebration, from the classic to the more modern.
For people who might not know you, SONO is a volunteer orchestra - could you give us a brief history of how it came to exist?
So SONO is primarily volunteer - we do have some paid section leaders, but yes, most of our players are wonderful collegiate or post-collegiate musicians that volunteer their time and talents to get to be a part of a really challenging and rewarding musical environment. We used to be completely a volunteer group, and we were actually operating under a different name for a long time. This group started as the New Orleans Volunteer Orchestra way back in the Spring of 2012, and it was originally just a way for me and a friend to get some podium time. It was a lot of Loyola students, but we opened it up to the community to fill some spots and saw such a phenomenal response from the community that it evolved into something focused more on being a community group. When we came back from the pandemic, it became really clear that it was time for the organization to change and grow, and so we rebranded in 2023 to the Symphony Of New Orleans - we started hosting auditions, inviting guest conductors, and bringing in section leaders and guest musicians. It's been phenomenal to see the way the group has grown in just the past couple of years and how positively people have responded to us curating a space for challenging and rewarding music-making.
Everyone in the orchestra has other professions, what kind of cross-section of people are members?
Honestly it runs the gamut! One of the wonderful things about community music projects of any form is the diverse range of musicians and humans who show up to be a part of this. We have musicians who are retired, working professionals in every imaginable field, collegiate musicians, and current professional musicians. It's always a really wonderful and humbling reminder that music matters to all kinds of people.
Are there any particular challenges for a volunteer orchestra like this as opposed to a professional one? I imagine that personal lives/family commitments might be more of an issue, or do you find that musicians are just as committed once they’re involved?
Honestly, a lot of the challenges about conflicts and personal commitments are the same that you run into in professional settings. Even when you're paying players, they're usually freelance musicians and can have things come up, whether that's a better-paying gig or just a life/family commitment. We do have personal lives and family commitments that come up for our players, but it's pretty manageable and has genuinely gotten better as we've raised our musical standards. People are really committed to what we're doing here.
Is it also difficult to find the full range of instrumentation? Are some sections over-subscribed and some hard to fill? Are you forever seeking, I don’t know, oboe players or does this just kind of naturally work itself out?
Absolutely. Making sure we have a reasonably balanced orchestra definitely takes perpetual effort and has to be sustained. It's tricky because a symphony orchestra is a really specific orchestration. We typically have a lot of trumpets and flutes audition as you might expect, and typically don't see as many folks auditioning for oboe and bassoon, but the players that we do have in those sections are wonderful. We're always looking for more strings and are trying to build up that section - right now we're actually still headhunting for some more violins and bass players!
If someone is interested in getting involved as a musician, what kind of level do they need to already be playing at and how would they make the first steps to joining?
If someone is interested in playing, they should visit our website and learn about our Open Rehearsals - once every concert cycle, about 4 times a year, we have a rehearsal that invites the entire community to come play with us and read through the repertoire. No audition required! This is a great space for people to experiment with the group and find out if it's a good fit for them.
Are there any other ways in which people (non-musicians, say) can support SONO? Where can we find your upcoming shows?
Absolutely! We have a lot of people making this organization work, and we need a lot of help both musically and non-musically. If folks are interested in volunteering their time or talents, they should reach out to us at [email protected], and for anybody who believes in this organization and what we're doing, we encourage you to consider visiting our website and donating whatever you can. Our website is also where you can find information about our upcoming shows! Visit us online.
Thank you so much for your time, we appreciate it so much! Best wishes for the upcoming season!
Thank you! Hope to see you at the next show!
For more information about the Symphony of New Orleans, including upcoming concerts, click here to go to their website
