Interview with John Lindberg on August 29, 2007 in Diehn Composers Room - Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia Interviewer: Dr. Jean A. Major Major: I’m Jean Major. This is August 29, 2007. I’m talking with John Lindberg, principal timpanist of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. John, how long have you been a member of the orchestra? Lindberg: I’m starting my 42nd year, so I’ve completed 41 seasons with the orchestra… starting in 1966 which was Russell Stanger’s first year; he hired me. Major: Right. What was your professional experience before the symphony? Lindberg: Well, the truth of the matter is, I was supposed to go to Julliard. I was 19 years old, and I was conscripted before I got my deferment, so I decided that it might be a good idea not to fight in the major part of the war, just to take a minor part of the war, so I came down here and auditioned at the Armed Forces School of Music, an audition that lasted over an hour and a half, and I’m thinking, my Julliard audition was only 20 minutes, and they took me. What’s this? I’m just trying to get into the Navy, right. Well, finally a guy came in and said, “Young man,” pretty much the voice by the way, “Young man, if you sign your enlistment papers today, you’re an instructor here.” I signed. Okay, so now we know how I got to the area. [Laughter] Pretty interesting stuff. Major: You’re not a native of this area? Lindberg: I was in the Navy for four years as an instructor at the Armed Forces School of Music, yeah. Major: Tell me something about what a career with the Virginia Symphony is like, what are its various facets? Lindberg: Well, that, this is going to be a long one, and I will do the best I can. You have to understand when I joined the orchestra in 1966, Edgar Schenkman, who had been in the orchestra for years as the conductor, had left. He had decided—he had been with the Norfolk Symphony and was asked to start an orchestra in 1958, I believe, in Richmond, and there were some hard feelings that Richmond was doing a little bit better than the Norfolk Symphony at the time, and Dr. Schenkman left. Dr. Schenkman also had been an instructor at Julliard, a conducting instructor. And they hired a young man who had been with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic as a Metropolis Conductor and also had been an associate conductor with Minnesota under Skrowaczewski to take [2] over the symphony. Now, as far as I can tell, there was not a conductor’s search. Minnesota Orchestra came through town; they played in the old Center Theater. Somebody went back and said to Maestro Skrowaczewski, “We’re looking for a conductor.” He said, “I’ve got one for you,” and Russell Stanger was pretty much hired on the word of Skrowaczewski, and so that’s when I joined the orchestra in 1966, and Russell Stanger was in his first year. And I say that—now that might seem like a long introduction to how—what’s it like being with the Virginia Symphony. In 1966, the budget was $66,000; approximately half of that money went to Maestro Stanger as the conductor, which was a nice chunk of change in 1966, leaving half of the budget for the musicians, to move the equipment, to rent the hall, to you know, rent the music, to hire soloists, and it was truly, truly a community orchestra, and I say as candidly as I can, I don’t think Maestro Stanger had any idea what he was getting into. He used to call it “The Housewives Club” behind their back, and it truly was a housewives club. From that time and a $66,000 budget, we have seen the orchestra grow into a major symphony orchestra, a member of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians with 54 fully professional complement fulltime musicians. And now, you know, I have to admit it; I’m in my 60s. These, and I call them the kids coming in, although they’re not kids; they are incredibly qualified professionals playing so far above their compensation level with the Virginia Symphony, it scares me. It has been the metamorphosis from a small caterpillar in a chrysalis to the most beautiful butterfly you have ever seen, and that’s my take on the 41 years I’ve experienced, and you can fill in all the blanks along the way, and I’m sure we’ll fill in a few. Major: Can you give me some sense of the various facets of the ____ being a symphony player now; you do this, and you do this, and you do this; what are those things? Lindberg: Well, you know, I’ll tell you. I haven’t been timpanist the whole time. I’ve been timpanist for about 21 years now. I was principal percussionist before that. I’ll tell you the truth. The better the orchestra gets, the easier everyone’s job is, and I say that because in the old days, -- and I have to give tremendous credit to Russell Stanger. Russell Stanger came in here, and it was not a very solid orchestra. He changed a few positions, and he was a man of electricity, incredible, and he got so much more out of this orchestra than anyone ever deserved, and I don’t think people realize that he was just a ball of fire on the podium. He had this orchestra playing things that were just tremendous, I mean on the edge, William Schuman’s Third Symphony, Pacific 231 of Arthur Honegger, Shostakovitch symphonies. You have to understand that Russell had been with Bernstein when the amazing recording of Shostakovitch Five was done with the New York Philharmonic, and Shostakovich was there, and Russell was immersed with Dmitri Shostakovich, and I think we did…oh my goodness, maybe six or seven of his, of Shostakovich’s symphonies in Russell’s tenure here. We did One; we did Three; we did Five; we did . I’m sure we did Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven. I mean, it was amazing, and he brought new literature into the [3] community. He was an amazing, an amazing man, not without flaws because the problem was he was dragging the orchestra into the 20th century, and the orchestra was still—they had no idea what they had or what the potential of their orchestra was. I’m talking about the board. When he came there was no professional management; that’s another story. So yeah, it’s, it’s been an amazing, an amazing run. I hope I answered some of what you asked, anyway. Major: What work do you do besides the symphony? Lindberg: Right now, I’m adjunct professor of percussion at the College of William and Mary. I’m able to put that in on my day off because you know, with the Symphony now we work six days a week, and I’m also President of the American Federation of Musicians Local 125, and with that I’m Vice President of the Greater Tidewater Central Labor Council. So, I understand when you talk about the growth of the orchestra, the growth of the orchestra has been in large part due to the growth of the musicians and the people that we hire in necessity to move forward and to establish ourselves as a cultural presence. Well, and now you know I think it is the cultural presence in the area. Major: What have been some of the high points of your career in the orchestra? Lindberg: Gee, you know I’ve had so many, and I’m going to tell you something. Musicians— there’s a wonderful book—Peanuts--it’s a compilation of Schultz’s cartoons, and the title of it is, Why Are Musicians so Sarcastic?, and of course I think ten people have bought me that. I just keep putting them in the library. When you have an opportunity to play in a symphony orchestra of the quality of the Virginia Symphony, you have so many high points that you really don’t have—you know it’s hard to pick one or two out. I premiered the Johan Franco Concerto Lyrico #4 for Percussion and Chamber Orchestra with the orchestra; that was a tremendous high point. The reviews were astounding, and it was a relatively difficult concerto, and I pulled it off relatively well, and then I also did the Thomas Rice Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra with the—with the orchestra, which was not a stellar performance because the conductor that they had, the guest conductor, had no idea what was going on, so I had not only to drag the orchestra along with me; I had to drag the conductor, too, but as far as Thomas Rice’s concerto being written for me and having the opportunity to play it with an orchestra, those were two really, really outstanding . Major: And both of them are local—were local conductors—composers? Lindberg: Both of them were local, yeah, yes, yes. Johan was actually from the Netherlands, and Tom Rice, who I thought was just a wonderful, wonderful composer; everything that could go wrong in a composer’s life would go wrong. He had a serious debilitating health problem which caused muscular atrophy. He was to have a wonderful recital of his music at Town Hall in New York, and the papers went out on strike, so he had absolutely no publicity for it.