A Founding Member's Remembrance

I was still a student at the University of Georgia in 1970 when Donald Neuen came to do a workshop for Georgia high school choral students.  He was on his way to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to help form the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and be Director of Choral Activities at the ASO.  He suggested to a group of us that we come over from Athens and audition.  We would be performing the great choral works with the Dean of American Choral Music, Robert Shaw.  The first performance would be Beethoven Nine.  Who could resist?  A group of us came to the audition, and five of us made it in.  Along with four other founding members, I’m still here.

What surprised me most about preparations for the first concert was the degree to which attention was paid to detail.  Everything.  Every single solitary last little thing got paid attention to.  Paying attention in this way was new to me.  I’d heard people say ‘pay attention’ all my life, but they didn’t mean pay attention in the way Mr. Shaw asked for our attentive participation in the singing we were doing together.  He cared about everything, and in that season and the seasons to come, he worked us as though the success of the choral art itself was at stake.  I think, in his heart, it was.  I can’t express how happy I was to be in on the deal.   The performances were a joy for which words are inadequate. 

I went away for a around a decade to do graduate study and sing some professionally.  I came back to Georgia when my parents' health became an issue.  I missed the New York life I’d been living for the past few years, but I consoled myself that I’d get back in the ASOC, and that would be a big boost to my personal life. 

In the fall of that year I auditioned, and I didn’t get in.  I was flummoxed. I’d been in before.  I had auditioned for Mr. Shaw before.  I could sing high, loud and fast.  I had professional experience.  How could they not be glad to have me back?

The issue with the ASOC was not only could I, but also would I be willing to express my opera tenor voice in a way that blended with my other tenor colleagues. It didn’t matter that I thought I had a nice voice.  What mattered most was the section sound that we all had to make our anonymous contribution to.  That was a tough season to get through, but after another audition I was granted provisional admission, contingent upon my successfully staying within ‘the sleeve of the sound’.  Thank God I’m still able to do it.

I live in Atlanta because I get to sing in the ASOC.  It is the greatest privilege of my life. The ASOC and ASO are the basics around which I organize my life.   I have been actively involved in music making here my whole adult life.  This music making in the Shaw tradition has taught me things about myself I couldn’t have learned any other way. It has provided countless transcendent experiences not only for me, but for all our ASO and ASOC performers, and more importantly, for the people of Atlanta, and through our touring and recording, for the world community of Classical Music lovers.  If you are looking for a place where you can experience the ultimate in Choral/Orchestral performance, well, we live there.  It’s Atlanta.

This is what is at stake in current contract negotiations between the ASO players and the people and institutions who have accepted the high calling of nurturing the orchestral and choral arts in Atlanta.  What we have here is unique.  It must be treasured and protected.  The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra must be enriched and strengthened and made secure for a future of excellence our Atlanta audience, and our wider audience around the world, will expect from us.  We have to do this.  And we can’t do it on the backs of the players who are being asked to flood the emergency rooms of our city when they and their families need medical attention.  You shouldn’t treat us this way. Atlanta’s musicians and our musical traditions of excellence are too important.

This excellence can’t be accomplished by some other group of performers.  What this group of players and singers have been able to accomplish together is particular to us, and is one of the world’s great musical treasures.  We’ve developed this ability to perform so well together over decades.  Don’t desert us.  Find a way.  Make it work. It’s what we live for. Unlock the place so we can get back to work. Send us back to Carnegie Hall and we will do our part-we will make you proud. The world is watching.  Find a way.

Stephen Reed

Founding Member

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus

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