Hi, my name is Callie Gambrill, and I'm Cab County District One Commissioner.

Joining me here today from the Georgia Symphony Orchestra is Dr.

Tim Verbell and Susan Tucker.

As we celebrate the Georgia Symphony Orchestra's upcoming 75th Diamond Anniversary season, can you share a little history about the orchestra's beginning in 1951 here in Cobb County?

Well, the orchestra, as you referred to, has been here from actually before 1951.

We started out as a music club.

It was the Marietta Music Club.

It met in various homes around, but it was really born in the Moore House, also known as the Van Perlman House on Church Street.

And it was a music club made up of mostly women who just wanted to socialize.

They wanted to learn about music, they wanted to remain kind of educated in it, and they would invite uh professors, performers, all sorts of people in to do recitals and just to talk about various subjects and music.

And it grew through the years in popularity.

It was a very active group.

They kept scrapbooks and they competed in scrapbook competitions all around the state.

And then as it grew in its activity, there was a member who wanted to put together a group to, in her words, do some fiddling of hymns in her in her living room.

And so that got advertised in the Marietta Daily Journal.

But instead of just a casual group, what was announced was that the Marietta Music Club was putting together a symphony.

And so once that went out, they began receiving phone calls from musicians who wanted to play.

They were like, how do we get in?

When does it meet?

When are we gonna rehearse?

And that was really the accidental birth of the symphony.

After that, they kind of figured out that they had so much interest that they wanted to keep moving and they moved in that direction.

It was amateur for a very long time, just talented people from the community who wanted to uh play their instrument.

Over time it grew more and more professional until you have the organization that we have today, which is a largely professional regional symphony.

So what inspired you to become involved with the symphony and the music in general?

How long is this show?

Well, I think for me, music was, you know, it wasn't a choice.

It was something that I was exposed to when I was younger in public school.

You know, we had music classes, we had orchestra, and it sort of just evolved and became a part of what I did as a person, right?

And so it it just became my path as a very simple way of of explaining it to where I couldn't envision existing in the world without doing something in in terms of music.

And so uh from there, you know, I continued on.

I studied music in college and um and and I got interested in conducting, which was um not intentional either when I was in college.

The uh conducting was a required class.

I thought I was just gonna be an instrumental performer, like like you see in orchestras and conducting was a required class, and it was different because in the orchestras, you know, I'm a I'm a bass player, which is you know the big wooden coffin on stage, the big bass violin, as a lot of people call it, and uh and so you always sit towards the back, but but with conducting, we had to come up to the front, and it was just a totally different sound world for me, and and I enjoyed it and I wanted to learn more about it, and so that sort of propelled me towards following that path uh of music.

And then in terms of the the GSO and joining the GSO.

Uh, you know, I had finished all my studies and had been working a bit, and I saw the opportunity had been posted.

And I did some research about the area, about the community because you can see what an orchestra says, but then you you kind of want to, I mean, this is like with any job posting, right?

You you look and you see what uh what is this about, and then what is this really about?

And so I I learned a bit about the the orchestra itself, I learned about the community.

And then when I was selected to do an audition, I came in and got to experience it firsthand.

And really what stood out to me was the history of the organization, the longevity of the organization, the strides it had made over its existence to continue growing, to continue um making music for everybody, and then looking at the area itself and saying, oh, well, this is a good opportunity because there's a lot of people in not just this city but in this county and then this portion of the Atlanta metropolitan area that can have these great experiences, and that gives us an opportunity to do something that a lot of orchestras don't have, which is to truly grow uh year after year.

And we've been fortunate that we've seen a lot of growth.

Um, and I'm not going to say it's it's fortunate because you know I was here.

It's not that's not it.

But we have seen a lot of growth, I think, um over the past decade, and it's all because of the dedicated work, I think, of our staff of our board, of our volunteers and our audiences coming out and supporting us.

Great.

So how do you select the pieces that you perform each season?

So again, how long is this?

It's a complicated process that you know good programming takes time.

It's real easy to just throw together a concert where you just say, Oh, well, we're gonna play a symphony on the back half, and we'll pick a concerto here and we'll just do an opener.

And that's it's pretty standard.

You can throw those together in a matter of minutes.

But the way I develop the programming for the Georgia Symphony is you know, we look at what we've done and we look at where we want to go.

We look at the music that's going to challenge us as an ensemble.

We look at are there ideas behind certain concerts we want to present?

And those ideas can be anything from our upcoming video game performances that we're doing to a holiday be pop show to a grand celebration that's happening in May, and then try to find the right repertoire that will achieve the ideas that we have behind the concerts.

So if you're looking to do something where you know you want to provide inspiration and talk about you know the unity of people, you might do something like Beethoven 9, which we did a year ago.

If you want to explore loss and remembrance, there's music for that.

There's music for I don't want to say every occasion, but literally almost every occasion, and it just depends on how you want to craft that for that individual concert, and then how that matters and relates to the entire season because you don't want to do just somber music for an entire season, right?

You can't just always do the joyous and happy music.

You want to explore the range of human existence and human emotions, and you want to try and find ways to cover all that ground within a season.

So that's the tip of the iceberg, I think, of programming for us and how we go about doing that.

Okay, great.

So the GSO is known for its community outreach and education programs.

Can you share how these impact young musicians and families in Cobb County?

Our mission statement is to remove barriers to access so that more people can experience the transformative uh power of music.

We think it's really important.

And um so our educational and outreach outreach programs are just one of the ways that we do that.

Um about 10 years ago, the symphony was approached by a family, uh, a mother with two young boys who were autistic, and they loved music.

And they she wanted to be able to bring them to the symphony to experience that full power.

But that is a difficult prospect with people who you if they're out of their comfort zone, you're just not quite sure how that's gonna hit at that moment, what the reaction is gonna be.

And she came and said, How can we make this possible where it's more comfortable for people like me and my family to do it?

And that's how the sim the uh sensory-friendly programs are born.

And the whole point of those is to make an environment that is welcoming for families, whether you're autistic, whether you have some other sensory sensitivity, um, whether you're just a young child, and it's just the prospect of infant uh of entering that symphony hall and what's that gonna be like.

We just want to create an atmosphere where you're welcome.

You can get up, you can move around, you can sing, you can clap, you can dance, you can conduct with the conductor, you can do all of these things that just allow you to experience the music in a really comfortable manner.

So that's kind of the genesis of those programs, and it's one of the things we're really the most proud of.

As far as our educational programs, um, it's our 75th anniversary, it's our youth symphony's 20th anniversary.

So this has been a long-standing commitment, actually, even before that.

The uh back when it was the Cobb Symphony Orchestra, they were doing a series of concerts called the Lollipops concerts.

So a commitment to education through music is something that the symphony has been committed to for for decades.

Um, and right now the Georgia Youth Symphony Orchestra is nearly 300 students, um, and they're committed to uh having a place for anybody.

If you can play your instrument, we've got a place for you on that stage where you can learn from some of the best instructors around, uh, experience playing with other uh musicians who are around your level or who are pressing you to be to the next level uh to get better and better.

And um we just think music education is really important, and we're proud to be able to offer such a um a really great uh well-rounded educational program for students in this area.

So when is your next sensory friendly concert?

Because I know I've had some questions about that.

Yes, absolutely.

The next sensory friendly and family concert will be on October 11th, and it'll be right here at the Jenny T.

Anderson at the Civic Center Auditorium.

And uh we want everybody to come, it's gonna be a really fun program.

It's uh music from video games.

So all of your favorite video game music played by a full symphony orchestra.

It'll be a really exciting and fun program.

Are there any particular moments or stories from past concerts that you that stand out to you?

Every performance provides you know memorable opportunities, and I'm not just saying that because everybody should come out to concerts, but I mean it can vary between you know, in speaking with someone after a concert, I've had uh I had an older woman come up to me and say, the piece you played tonight, I hadn't heard it in a long time, but my mother used to play records when I was a kid, and and it was that, and I never knew what it was, and I know what that was.

You know, so you can have something as small as that to um, you know, a couple seasons ago uh make a wish.

Uh Georgia contacted us and said, hey, we have an idea or a request, but we're not sure how we can fulfill it.

And they had a a young man who wanted to be an orchestra conductor of all things.

I don't know how you you want to do that.

Um it's a big job, but um, but JB had asked that for his wish, and JB was wheelchair bound, and he he wanted to be an orchestra conductor, so it was something that we worked on to facilitate that, where he came in and he was able to conduct on a concert.

And I worked with him a few times beforehand because uh they lived down in South Georgia, you know.

So we did video calls to prep, and and he came in and he knew it, and he knew what was going on with the music, and and it was one of those moments where I don't know if it was more impactful for for him or for the audience or for the musicians on stage just to see somebody having the ability to live their dreams.

So really every time we take the stage, and I try to say this and not make it more than what it is, but every time we take the stage, there's there's all these moments that happen because everybody brings something different every time they come in.

They bring their memories, their experiences, their desires of what they're hoping to see, and and it all plays out live uh on the stage.

And and so that's what I think makes it, you know, unique to hear live music performed and to see these interactions that happen.

And we could go on and on, but these are the types of things that that really it's why we do what we do, right?

So, you know, music and the arts are made to be shared with others to express our humanity.

And at the end of the day, when you create a space for that, then it just it happens and it's the most gratifying thing.

So, how as a community can we get more involved with the Georgia Symphony Orchestra?

There are actually a lot of ways you can be involved with us.

The first one and the most obvious is to come buy a ticket and come to a concert.

Our website is Georgia Symphony.org.

You can find out all about our all about our season.

Uh we have really a concert for anybody.

We've got holiday pops, we've got a movie concert coming up, we have our children's programming with the family concerts.

We have our classics, we have jazz.

There is something that we do under the umbrella of the Georgia Symphony Orchestra for anyone who loves music.

So uh buy a ticket and come and see us.

We also have a community chorus that you can be a part of.

You can audition and sing with the chorus.

Uh, as we said, we've got a youth symphony orchestra, and we're always looking to add more students to that and give that opportunity.

Um you can be a patron, you can be a sponsor.

If you have a local business and you want to align yourself with a group like ours who uh believes in connection with this community, then you can come on board and support us as a sponsor.

So there are a whole laundry list of ways that you can be in uh part of the Georgia Symphony Orchestra, and we invite everyone to come engage with us in that way.

Wonderful.

Well, I know I'm looking forward to the concert season that's coming up and celebrating your 75th year, and it's been a pleasure to have you with me today.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you.