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412 Travis Street
Lafayette, LA 70503
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ABOUT THE ACADIANA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
The Past,
The Present,
and The Future
THE PAST
By Geraldine Hubbell, longtime Executive Director of ASO and still an active Board member and volunteer.
Long before the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra played its first concert, planning sessions by Lafayette’s leading arts advocates, Willis Ducrest, Nolan Sahuc, Kenny Bowen, Becky Lewis, James Hernandez, and Harry Miller among others, had laid the groundwork and preparations for a symphony in Lafayette, LA. In 1984, the ASO was founded. Later it was incorporated in 1987. The ASO began as a product of the University of Southwestern Louisiana’s “L’orchestre” conducted by Dr. Allan Dennis. When Dr. Dennis moved to Illinois, the ASO was led by John Kenney followed by John Shenaut, and Xiao-Lu Li. In its early years, the ASO was a community orchestra and the symphony played in various venues, including the Heymann Center, Angelle Hall, Vermilionville, the Hilton Hotel and Holiday Inn Conference Center as well as doing outreach concerts in Acadiana.
General Managers of the Orchestra since its founding have been Tonio Cutrera, Griff Gomez, Geraldine Hubbell, Marie Orgeron, Don Hill, Timothy Bergman and Denise Mata Melancon. The office for the organization began in a two-room space on Heymann Blvd. now occupied by upscale dress shops. The only other employee of the staff was Margaret Bertrand, secretary to Maestro Shenaut. It was during his tenure that Maestro Shenaut organized the entire structure of the Symphony Board and the founding of its support group, the Acadiana Symphony Women’s League, which remains the largest donor to the ASO. When he retired in 1991, the ASO joined forces with USL to hire Xiao-Lu Li , where he conducted both the ASO and the USL Orchestra program.
ASO Staff circa 1993 (l to r) Jacquie Fourcade, Margaret Bertrand, Mark Pritchard*, Barbara Clardy*,
Richard Lopez*, Tonio Cutrera*, Maestro Xiao-Lu Li
*
still ASO members or volunteers!
This decade marked the beginning of enormous growth and change for the ASO. The move to larger quarters on East St. Mary, next to the Petroleum Club, provided growth in the Symphony’s staff and professional structure. Members of the orchestra were now admitted by audition only; a master agreement and contract for musicians was put into place; musicians were given raises to meet the national median; all concerts were performed in one venue; administrative assistants were hired for the executive director. The orchestra made the transition from community orchestra to professional regional orchestra and to celebrate this change, the orchestra was honored with a fanfare entitled New Beginning by Greg Danner, principal horn player. Grants from the NEA and the Louisiana DOA helped to solidify the new position of ASO in the state of Louisiana.
In 1994, national recognition was accorded the ASO on CBS News Sunday Morning (July 3, 1994) with hosts Eugenia Zuckerman and Charles Osgood, as well as in Symphony Magazine, the national journal of the American Symphony Orchestra League. 1994 also witnessed the formation of the Acadiana Symphony Youth Orchestra. The 1995 season included an artistic exchange with the Chinese government, with six of the ASO orchestra members performing and teaching master classes in Beijing and Shanghai.
That same year, the orchestra purchased a building at 412 Travis Street in Lafayette’s Oil Center and established the ASO Conservatory of Music, a community music school to service students of all ages. In 1997 and 1998, the orchestra produced two compact discs. In 1998, the Maia String Quartet became the resident quartet of the Acadiana Symphony.
In 1999, the ASO also made a historic, live telecast performance for the opening FrancoFête Gala at the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge. The concert was telecast on Louisiana Public Broadcasting/PBS. The orchestra achieved a milestone when it paid its mortgage on the Conservatory building in only four years after receiving generous donations from Mr. Herbert Heymann and Mr. and Mrs. Ernie Alexander .
In 1999 ASO produced the first Ducrest Young Artists’ competition, named after Willis Ducrest, outstanding music educator and one of the leading founders of the ASO.
Xiao-lu Li’s contract with the ASO ended in 2002. During his final season, a special committee comprised of musicians, Board Members and community leaders conducted a national search for his successor. The 2002-03 season featured concerts led by the 6 guest conductors who were the finalists in that search. After each concert, the candidates were rated by the orchestra, the board and the members of the audience. The search ended with the hiring of
Maestro Mariusz Smolij
to become the fifth conductor and artistic director of the Acadiana Symphony.
THE PRESENT
By Virginia Stuller, President ASO Board of Directors
We are a vibrant and dynamic organization of which I’m proud to be a part. Please consider joining us to help promote the presentation of live music from Master Works to Pops, from small ensembles, to chamber groups, and from educational concerts to Opera! Come to the ASO to hear some of the most outstanding guest artists on the planet!
How do we do it? We are governed by a Board of Directors, ably assisted by the Acadiana Symphony Women’s League, administered by our Executive Director and staff, and supported by friends, patrons, and corporate sponsors. We operate with a small payroll and depend heavily on volunteers from all walks of life, interests, and backgrounds. The cost of supporting a professional symphony orchestra is surprising. It takes constant attention from asking our corporate partners for sponsorships for all our performances, writing and submitting grants, appealing to individuals for contributions, and constantly searching for ways to reduce cost. Our subscribers care deeply about the preservation of our symphony and know that the investment in season tickets and the investment in time attending our concerts is an investment in the quality of life in Acadiana.
And we also work diligently on fundraisers! Our fund raisers are truly FUN: Symphony Suppers, Decorators ShowHouse, the Artchestra Project (a painted violin event), MadHatter’s Luncheon, our Symphony Scramble golf tournment, and our never-ending search for creative ways to support our symphony have brought our volunteers together in a very successful year. Please join us! Help us make the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra and Conservatory of Music thrive!
THE FUTURE
By Mariusz Smolij, Music Director of ASO
We have an orchestra of high artistic quality – one which any city of any size could be justifiably proud to claim. Yet we often feel like we’re one of Acadiana’s “hidden treasures”. Our goal is to bring the irreplaceable art of live orchestral music to every segment of the community. In these times, when so many of us are overloaded with lots of information, tangled in busy schedules and lacking enough time for ourselves and our families, the experience of a live musical performance can help us to reconnect with what’s most important within us and with each other.
The future of the ASO clearly depends on the relationship with its community. We want to keep our old friends, but we are also eager to meet many new ones. During this season and the years to come, we will present you with the greatest musical masterworks of all times. We will give everyone in our community a chance to experience them during live performances. We are not a pre-edited movie, or a recording, or a poster print; we are live artists sharing with you our love of music and performance. In addition to introducing the world-famous visiting artists, we will continue our collaboration with local musicians (such as former guests Michael Doucet and Sonny Landreth) who represent a wide gamut of musical styles, therefore connecting symphonic sounds with the inspiring musical traditions of Acadiana. We will perform outreach concerts throughout our region, bringing arts closer to your home. We will educate our youth and provide opportunities for quality time for entire families.
From the intimacy of chamber music to full blown operas, from musical movie scores such as Harry Potter to Beethoven’s Eroica, we will work with our musicians, friends, partners and sponsors to bring out the treasures of live orchestral music. We are looking to develop special musical relationships with everyone in Acadiana so that musical treasure, the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, can be enjoyed by all.
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Long before the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra played its first concert, planning sessions by Lafayette’s leading arts advocates, Willis Ducrest, Nolan Sahuc, Kenny Bowen, Becky Lewis, James Hernandez, and Harry Miller among others, had laid the groundwork and preparations for a symphony in Lafayette, LA. In 1984, the ASO was founded. Later it was incorporated in 1987. The ASO began as a product of the University of Southwestern Louisiana’s “L’orchestre” conducted by Dr. Allan Dennis. When Dr. Dennis moved to Illinois, the ASO was led by John Kenney followed by John Shenaut, and Xiao-Lu Li. In its early years, the ASO was a community orchestra and the symphony played in various venues, including the Heymann Center, Angelle Hall, Vermilionville, the Hilton Hotel and Holiday Inn Conference Center as well as doing outreach concerts in Acadiana.
We are a vibrant and dynamic organization of which I’m proud to be a part. Please consider joining us to help promote the presentation of live music from Master Works to Pops, from small ensembles, to chamber groups, and from educational concerts to Opera! Come to the ASO to hear some of the most outstanding guest artists on the planet!
We have an orchestra of high artistic quality – one which any city of any size could be justifiably proud to claim. Yet we often feel like we’re one of Acadiana’s “hidden treasures”. Our goal is to bring the irreplaceable art of live orchestral music to every segment of the community. In these times, when so many of us are overloaded with lots of information, tangled in busy schedules and lacking enough time for ourselves and our families, the experience of a live musical performance can help us to reconnect with what’s most important within us and with each other.