Yesterday was a very sad day for me and for the HSO. Our Orchestra Manager, Bill Schmieding died in his sleep on Wednesday night. He was only 55 years old.

Bill had managed the orchestra since before I came to Harrisburg. He had been a violinist in the Tulsa Philharmonic, before turning to management. He had profound knowledge of orchestral repertoire, and brought a lot of great music to my attention.

No one knew the ins and outs of the Harrisburg Symphony like Bill. His job encompassed a wide range of duties, ranging from personnel management to stage management and artistic and technical administration. He made sure that there was a high-quality orchestra on stage every rehearsal and performance, as well as ensuring for everything else that went into a performance. Nobody outside of the orchestra world can understand how important a good manager is to the success of what’s on stage. We in the HSO were very fortunate to have Bill. I don’t really know how we will smoothly operate without him.

On a personal level, Bill was my friend. He was not always the easiest guy to be with. He was an unabashed curmudgeon and cynic, but had a good sense of humor about himself, and about others. He, like all of us, had his demons, but he kept them in check. More than anything (except his wife and daughter), he loved the orchestra. He took great pride in his work, and when the orchestra played well, he never crowed or waxed poetic, but you could see in his quiet contentment, enormous pride in a job well done.

Sadly, his health was his Achilles heel. We all had a sense that it would eventually get the better of him, but nonetheless, his death came as a terrible shock.

My condolences go out to his family. I will miss him very much.

Well.... certainly not blogging.

It was a remarkably fast-moving summer. I always approach the summer with grandiose plans to accomplish great things while the Harrisburg Symphony is off-season, only to find myself at summer’s end having accomplished little. This summer I took the opposite approach, and planned on accomplishing very little. Much to my delight, I was thoroughly successful.

This is not to say that nothing got done. I was actually busily occupied most of the time. Musically, I got through the HSO holiday pops concerts very well. In fact, I thought they were some of our best. I also played three concerts for Market Square Concerts Summermusic, with my good friends in the Fry Street Quartet. I always enjoy this week, but in the past I only played on one concert. The extra load was certainly exhausting, but a great pleasure.

The Market Square week was somewhat bittersweet this year. For many years now, the guest artists and the rehearsals have been hosted by Linda and Jason Litton. They have become very dear friends. Sadly, this past summer was to be our last with Jason. He had been diagnosed several months earlier with a brain tumor, and we knew that he was in his last months. He died this week, and I am very sad to have lost a friend whose company I always enjoyed. He was a gentle man (and a gentleman), smart, curious, and a true music lover - even though he really knew very little about music. He was a great wine lover as well - and he knew a lot about wine, and served me some of the best wine I’ve ever tasted. I feel so fortunate to have had a few opportunities to spend some quality time with him this past summer. He will be sorely missed.



The other musical activity that occupied my time this summer was arranging and orchestrating some tunes for the holiday concerts I will be conducting in Naples, Florida in December. I did some very good work on those.

But most of my summer was spent being a dad. I’m very fortunate to have two great kids, and further fortunate to have had the time to really enjoy their company this summer. They were involved in several different camps, and because my wife, Marty, has been working full time, I did a bunch of shuttling them around, as well as doing lots of dad-like activities.



Back in June, my parents celebrated their 50th Anniversary. To celebrate, we got our whole family together in the Poconos for a wonderful vacation at Skytop resort. We all had a blast. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen my parents happier.



We also got to spend two lovely weeks on Cape Cod with my parents. Their house sits overlooking a wildlife sanctuary marsh, as well as Cape Cod Bay. The view is incredible, and changes, like a series of Monet paintings, as the light of day shifts. We swam a lot, ate great fresh fish, and enjoyed nice family time.



Now, the new season has crashed down upon us. The kids are back at school, Marty’s begun teaching, and I have taken on a new project for the next four months. I am conducting and teaching conducting at Penn State for the first semester. The regular conducting professor, Gerardo Edelstein, is on sabbatical, so I have agreed to fill in for him. I go up Tuesdays and Thursdays, conduct the orchestra, and teach three graduate students. So far, it’s been very tiring, but very enjoyable.

So there you have it - my essay, as it were, on “How I spent my summer vacation.”

A discussion of Hanson’s “Romantic” Symphony, a masterpiece of Neo-Romanticism which unabashedly wears its heart on its sleeve.

Click on “Podcast” below to listen.



Podcast