The material below was given to me by one of the most talented and dedicated musicians I have had the pleasure to work with. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a rousing applause for ……..Larkin.
“I was inspired to start a music festival after attending Chamber Music Midwest in New Richmond, WI, a music festival that was created by one of my best friends (Clare Harmon). At CMM, I was the resident clarinetist and composer. I joked that I’d call it the “Taneycomo Festival Orchestra (after Lake Taneycomo), and the name stuck. Three months later, we incorporated the orchestra as a nonprofit organization with the state of Missouri (September 2011).
I spent a year planning while I finished my master’s degree at Michigan State University. It was an exhausting year of administrative trial and error because the only real model I had was Chamber Music Midwest. I knew, though, that I wanted to have several fundamental values in place at TFO: free admission to all concerts and expense-free music-making opportunity for my musician colleagues and a high-quality yet casual musical experience for the community members of my home town.
Somehow, I managed to recruit 8 violinists, 4 violists, 4 cellists, 1 double bassist, 2 flutes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, 1 tuba, 2 percussionists, a harp, and 2 conductors for the first season of TFO. We gave 8 concerts in two weeks, and it was a bigger success than I ever thought it would be. It never rained during outdoor concerts, and we overwhelmed Vintage Paris (local establishment) with our 200-member audience. For the second year, we increased the size of the orchestra to 70 members and gave 12 concerts. The audiences grew, and the enthusiasm from both the community and orchestra members grew with it.
We are developing traditions and regularity each year. The Shoe Tradition, for example, started at the first concert that TFO ever gave. I was wearing some absurdly tall pumps and trying to make my way across Vintage Paris’s brick patio. To avoid twisting my ankle, I took my shoes off and continued warming up and SizeGenetics organizing things. Once the concert began, I was in the back row feeling absolutely thrilled to know that my dreams were finally coming to fruition. Then, I saw my forgotten shoes, squarely in the middle of the stage for all to see. There was no use in recovering them, and once the concert ended, many people told me that the really liked the shoes. The shoes became symbolic of the casual nature of our concerts, and now there is a pair of shoes displayed on stage at each concert. Audiences will also see me barefoot at each show.
There are orchestra members who have been involve with the TFO since its brainstorming stages of 2011. There are also brand-new orchestra members this year. Because the musicians are almost all graduate student music performance majors from all over the country, we use their networks to bring in new musicians and to allow the orchestra to grow. We are also collaborating with local musicians and groups like the Branson Chorale to make concerts even more special.
Even as audiences and the orchestra continue to grow, our values and mission reign true, and I hope it will for years to come:
The Taneycomo Festival Orchestra is a nonprofit organization that provides a free two-week concert series of orchestral and chamber music in Branson, Missouri. We seek to break the 19th century tradition that attending an art music concert is a formal and elitist event by providing an accessible and casual series of concerts and educational programs while continuing to preserve these great works of art in our destination city. Come as you are and enjoy the beautiful music!
I believe that classical music can be enjoyed by anyone, so long as it is presented in a way that makes them feel comfortable. The TFO focuses on bringing music to people rather than expecting them to come to music. We’re not going to force anyone to like something, but if good music is sounding in a place where the audience feels comfortable in a way that removed the pressures of outdated traditions and expectations, then what’s not to like”?
