May 10-11, 2008
A Farewell to
Conductor Wendy Larson
“Blessed, charmed or lucky, it’s been a good run for me."
The year was 1994, and one of the two co-conductors of the year-old Symphony in the Valley was moving away. At a rehearsal, the question was raised, “Does anyone have any conducting experience?”
Wendy Larson, then the only cello player in the tiny orchestra, raised her hand. Before moving to Aspen, she had taught music and conducted middle and high school orchestras in Illinois. And she conducted the pit orchestra for Aspen Community Theater productions.
That’s all it took for Wendy to get the job, which came with no pay but offered a bit of glory and plenty of opportunity for fun, hard work and creative expression.
 “Conducting is a unique experience,” Wendy said. “The orchestra is your instrument. Here are all these musicians, playing masterpieces written by the great composers, and you are leading them.
“It’s a peak experience of my life. Conducting the orchestra is one of the greatest things I’ve ever had,” she said.
Please note that this is a woman who went to college on a full scholarship, has bagged all 54 of Colorado’s 14ers, is a frequent foreign traveler and worked a highly successful 28-year career in teaching at Aspen Middle School.
Now Wendy Larson has decided to hand the baton over to a new conductor. It’s not a change that members of the orchestra wanted, but they have accepted her desire to move on after 14 successful seasons at the podium.
The good run started with the 1994-95 season, when founding conductor Jon Madsen shared the podium with Wendy. Working together over three seasons, they attracted a solid core of local musicians to Symphony in the Valley and established the orchestra as a valued member of the valley’s cultural scene.
While she took the baton enthusiastically, Wendy notes that she wouldn’t have started a symphony orchestra in the valley. For that inspiration, she applauds Karin White and Chick Overington, who founded the orchestra in 1993.
“I owe a lot of thanks to those two people,” Wendy said.
Jon Madsen left the orchestra in 1997 after he was diagnosed with cancer, and died in 1998. Losing Madsen and his generous spirit was painful and sad for the orchestra. As a tribute, the orchestra established the Jon Madsen Memorial Scholarship.
By the 1997-98 season, Wendy was ready to take the lead in conducting the orchestra. Her friend and neighbor, John Bokram, a solid member of the trumpet section with a background in musical education, stepped up as associate conductor starting in the 1998-99 season.
Wendy also took over the behind-the-scenes role of artistic director, conjuring up themes for concerts, selecting music and lining up soloists.
“For many, many summers, I listened to music day in and day out. The programming was such a big part of it. I’d just sit in my house, listen to music and think of what I could do to get the orchestra excited, to get the audience excited,” she said.
That creative thinking resulted in many memorable concerts. “Hits of the 20th Century” and “100 Years of Broadway” reprised the turn of the new century. Children’s concerts featured Tubby the Tuba, Carnival of the Animals and Peter and the Wolf. “Familiar Classics” offered snippets of well-known classical themes, with costumed conductors. And the Symphony Swing dinner dances and concerts revived live big band music.
Collaborations with Wendy’s wide circle of friends in music put a sparkle in many performances. She teamed up with Aspen hardrock miner Jay Parker, who supplied the cannon fire for the 1812 Overture, performed outdoors in 2005. It was a one-of-a-kind musical blast.
A high point for her was the October 2006 John Denver Tribute concert, played at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen with Denver’s former band, and the May 2007 performance of the opera Carmina Burana.
Wendy programmed orchestral classics, including complete symphonies by Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert. And she collected fancy gowns, tuxedos and other glittery garments to maintain sartorial versatility under the spotlight.
And who could have missed her fascination with Russian composers? It started with the conducting workshop she attended in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1998, and resulted in the orchestra playing works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Moussorgsky and Rachmaninoff.
To build her conducting skills, she attended summer conducting workshops in Illinois in 1999, Toronto in 2001, and in 2006 she attended the Royal College of Music in London.
In the 2003-04 season, Wendy and orchestra manager Marice Doll started the Young Artists Concerto Competition. Wendy already encouraged graduating seniors to perform a concerto solo. The Concerto Competition gave other young musicians a chance to play with the orchestra and dazzle audiences with their talent.
The competition also fostered a musical friendship between the orchestra and the competition judges, Carlos Elias, concertmaster of the Grand Junction Symphony and leader of the string and orchestra program at Mesa State College, and his wife, Andrea, a classical pianist.
Starting with the 2008-09 season, that association will deepen, as Carlos Elias takes over the position of conductor and artistic director for Symphony in the Valley.
— Heather McGregor
© 2008 Symphony in the Valley
P.O. Box 1831, Glenwood Springs, Colorado 81602
www.sitv.org
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