8 minute read
Louisville Orchestra: A 'TYPICAL' DAY BEHIND-THE-SCENES
When the phone rings at 7 a.m., Adrienne Hinkebein, Personnel Manager at the Louisville Orchestra, knows that her day is going to get complicated. “If a musician doesn’t feel well on the morning of a concert, they always try to give me as much time as possible to find someone to take their place on stage,” says Adrienne. W
As Personnel Manager, Adrienne keeps track. “I’m the Orchestra Mom,” she jokes. “I make sure everyone knows where they should be and when they need to be there.”
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Behind the scenes at the Louisville Orchestra, a dedicated group of production specialists make the performances flow. In addition to Adrienne as “Orchestra Mom” with 15 years of experience in managing working conditions, payroll, and attendance for the union-based musicians, the team includes Operations Manager Jake Cunningham, Music Librarian Chris Skyles, Stage Manager Bill Polk, and Production Coordinator Alissa Brody. The group works under the leadership of Director of Artistic Operations Matthew Feldman. While Teddy Abrams and the talented musicians bring the magic, this team is vital to the seamless presentation of all the orchestra concerts.
We all wonder what the future of live concert performances will look like, but in the meantime here’s a peek behind the scenes of what was a “typical” Louisville Orchestra concert production scenario for just a single concert. After programming is selected and guest artists are scheduled, the work starts months in advance.
Operations Manager Jake Cunningham has been researching venues for the Louisville Orchestra’s Republic Bank Music Without Borders Series at neighborhood locations for years. “I love getting out to look at new sites for concerts,” says Jake. “It’s a real treat to discover a location that can accommodate the orchestra and also works for the audience. But we do have our favorite locations that we return to every season.”
One favorite venue is The Jeffersonian, the community center in Jeffersontown, Ky. It has become a regular location for the neighborhood concerts. “It’s just great to work with the team from J-town,” says Jake. “Mayor Bill Dieruf is at every performance, and his event staff of Debbie Hendrick and Emily Villescas help find dates on their event calendar for concerts and then handle all the logistics with us.”
“J-town is amazing,” agrees Stage Manager Bill Polk. “My work with the venue is mostly on the day of the concert. Their space is completely versatile, so even though we had to figure out how to manage without a typical backstage area and dressing rooms at first, they did everything possible to make it functional for us.
“Besides,” says Bill, “they put out an incredible spread for the audience and musicians to share. The concerts just turn into a big party at the end.”
The “party” starts with Music Director Teddy Abrams conferring with Director of Artistic Operations Matthew Feldman on the concert program. Once the program is released to the staff, progress is made on all fronts.
Music Librarian Chris Skyles takes the lead to get the music into the hands of the musicians. After reviewing the program selections, he outlines the need for “extra” musicians (second harp, saxophone player, additional percussionists, etc.) and alerts Adrienne to engage additional musicians. He also alerts Bill Polk about any instruments to be acquired, for example – renting a harpsichord or buying some exotic percussion instrument. Next, he has to find or acquire the actual sheet music. The orchestra owns parts and scores to some works but often music has to be rented. Chris searches out the rental companies and secures contracts to get the music.
About two months in advance of the concert, Chris sharpens his pencils, pulls out the tape and his erasers. It’s time to go to work on the sheet music that arrives in his office in large travel boxes delivered by UPS.
“I always want to give myself plenty of time in case I need to do some ‘doctoring-up’ of torn or missing pages, excessive writing on the parts, or even completely missing parts,” says Chris. “Then I start floating parts out to the lead section string players for changes in the bowings.
“There is one thing that I always do first with the music,” says the librarian. “I’ve seen rehearsals grind to a halt because of something a librarian has missed. Sometimes it’s something funny but more often it’s something horrible. A disconnect between the conductor score and the musician parts is the worst.”
Conductors often have their personal copies of important musical scores. Marked with their study notes or highlighted sections, a conductor’s score can be a treasure map to the real jewels of any piece of music. However, different editions of a piece can have slight or even significant differences. Disasters can occur when the orchestra and the conductor play from different editions.
Chris confers with Teddy or a guest conductor over any indications they want marked in the parts including cuts, repeats, and tempo changes. “There can be lots of changes, especially when we work with the ballet or opera. And every conductor has different solutions to some of the issues,” says Chris. After making the changes and corrections, Chris can finally distribute the music to the players.
Once concert pieces are chosen, it's up to Music Librarian Chris Skyles to get the right sheet music to all the performers.
In the meantime, Jake is securing soloists, coordinating with choirs, and digging through the fine print of artist contracts. He’s responsible for all logistics of getting guest artists to Louisville and for their needs while here.
“Teddy likes to feature local talent often, so I’m not always worried about hotels and transportation. But I’m always working with Bill on details of staging, lighting, stage movements, and sometimes even costumes,” says Jake.
Operations department responsibilities also include video elements. “There are a lot of logistics to presenting films with the orchestra and I expect our video responsibilities to increase as we look at presenting more online concerts.”
When concert day dawns, with or without the 7 a.m. wake-up call to Adrienne from incapacitated musicians, most often the production crew is heading for a morning rehearsal before the evening concert.
Stage Manager Polk first travels to a truck rental outlet to trade his personal vehicle for a 24-foot box truck. “I’m usually at the hall with the truck by 7:45 a.m.,” says Bill. “We bring up the chairs, stands, stools, stand lights, the timpani, any keyboards and percussion stuff out of our storage and set the orchestra by 8:30 a.m. I like to be a little early because people start showing up to warm up for a 9:30 a.m. rehearsal by 8:45 a.m.”
Louisville Orchestra production personnel with violinist Anne Akiko Meyers.
Bill usually has at least one stagehand to help. “With the really big set-ups, I sometimes have up to four people and I’ll usually have two or three people on a stage call. It cuts down on people getting hurt when you have more hands moving the heavy instruments” musician has their own chair or stool and the layout of the orchestra changes with every concert.
“You have to understand that these musicians have to be able to work for hours when sitting in these chairs,” explains Bill. “We use three different types of chairs and each one can be customized for the musician. So getting the right chair in the right place, every time we move this group, is an important item.” After rehearsal, the crew packs the truck and moves to the concert venue to set up for the evening performance.
As the orchestra members arrive at the Jeffersonian for the concert, Adrienne checks her attendance. “I worry about everyone,” she says. “I know what their usual patterns are – who comes early to warm up, who carpools and arrives together – things like that. I find myself concerned about traffic, childcare issues, and other stuff when I know it might cause problems for musicians. I make a few calls sometimes when we are getting close to the start time and people have not arrived. Things happen.” The concert is supposed to start on the stroke of 7:30 p.m. and as the keeper of the “official clock,” Adrienne keeps track. Jake knows when guest artists are expected arrive or he’s on duty to pick them up. Alissa Brody manages Teddy’s time before and after rehearsals and concerts.
Adrienne checks to be sure all musicians are in their places. Bill checks the microphones. Jake checks for overall logistics and guest artists. Chris checks that the scores are ready for the conductor and everyone has the music they need. Alissa checks on Teddy.
Ready?
Bill cues the mayor for his welcome speech. Cue the concertmaster to enter and tune the orchestra. Cue the conductor. And we have a concert!
Later, as the audience and musicians mingle to enjoy the postconcert party, all the gear is stowed into travel boxes, music is collected to be sorted and returned, the production crew works to load the truck until they turn out the lights after everyone else has gone home. As the last man standing, Bill Polk drops off the truck after his crew unloads at the Kentucky Center and picks up his own vehicle to head home at about 1 a.m. “Yeah,” says Polk, “it’s a lot of work... But I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”
