Repertoire Selection

To select music for HP Symphony performances, we must consider many factors. Level of difficulty is a prime concern, since HPSO members range in skill level from near-professional down to near-beginner. Cost is also a critical issue due to our limited budget. We frequently borrow music from other local orchestras, but we purchase and rent music as well, and we are careful to pay performance and recording royalties whenever required. The HPSO organization is unusual in that our Music Director position is separate from that of principal conductor. HPSO founder Herb Gellis serves as Music Director and is thus ultimately responsible for the repertoire selection. Herb has provided the following description of the selection process.

Selection Process
Herb Gellis, Music Director

"In the early years, the orchestra had a "pizza meeting" prior to each season where I would pull out recordings of things to try out, pass out scores, etc., and get some reaction -- though I think the most important thing for the pizza meetings is to get together and enjoy pizza and good camaraderie! We also did some summer read-thru sessions where we tried out some music that we were able to borrow ahead of time (public domain stuff from local orchestras).

"Although it is impossible to satisfy everybody in the orchestra, I do work at and worry about trying to have sufficient balance and interest to all of the sections. I know this doesn't always work out perfectly each concert set, but I keep that goal in front of me nevertheless. One season we had distributed half the music out at first, and one of our trumpet players stopped by my desk and indicated that 'if this was indicative of the rest, the brass folks would be really bored.' I almost immediately pulled one of the pieces and substituted another which fortunately we had on hand. [Note that classical-period pieces generally have no parts for trombone, tuba, keyboard, or sometimes even trumpet.]

"The mix of music almost always has ranged from orchestral classics to show tune medleys, to some of the more modern and imaginative pieces we've played more recently, and I'm always trying to come up with a theme for the concert -- usually ahead of time or along the way to help shape the actual choices. Sometimes we have had to work harder at 'coercing' a theme. (Occasionally members have suggested as a theme "stuff we can play.")

"A relatively new goal, set for our Millennium change a few years back, was to do a little 'affirmative action' and make sure we played at least one piece by a woman composer at each concert. This particular goal is reasonably challenging, as it tends to make choices from living composers (Cecile Chaminade, Clara Schumann, et al., notwithstanding). Supporting living composers is something I believe in strongly anyway -- otherwise there wouldn't be any new music to play! In spite of the HPSO being 'small potatoes' in the music world, I still believe we can and should make some effort in this direction.

"Another goal is to encourage members of the orchestra to stretch a little when they want to, to be soloists. Sometimes an HPSO member suggests something they might want to play, sometimes I approach a member and ask if they would be willing to give something a shot. I'm interested in making things happen. For example, Alice Chiang got cheated out of being soloist in Rhapsody in Blue when she was in school, so I made it happen for her and the HPSO in the Fall, 1997 season.

"Regarding suggestions for pieces to play, I take all member suggestions seriously and usually look into them immediately. There are many catches to this -- even if it's something we can and would be interested in playing, it might not fit right away with plans already in place or might be a little too long to juggle into the program, etc. It takes some time to get a program going from scratch, and there is no time during the year that I'm not working on some aspect of programming for the future! There are also many pieces that we can't play -- either the music is not available, or outrageously expensive (a lot of modern stuff, typically under copyright from big publishers, including original movie music), or very difficult. When we are interested in playing a movement from a classic symphony, I have been usually able to borrow it from the San Jose Symphony's music library, and occasionally from others, eliminating a big purchase (or more likely, we wouldn't play the movement).

"Regarding music that is only available via rental, we are actually 'penalized' by playing music at multiple concerts because all modern publishers have rental fees per performance (though on a sliding scale). In spite of the fact we usually would be charged at a 'community' rate rather than a professional rate, this usually means we can't play anything under rental that is published by a major publisher. I actually have negotiated lower rates with publishers, and gotten some darn special prices from many self-published composers too. For example, we wouldn't have been able to afford Michael Horwood's Amusement Park Suite at the standard rates. Michael was of course disappointed, as this was the second time this piece was turned down recently due to cost factors, so he personally intervened and spoke with the Canadian Music Centre (his publisher), and we ended up basically agreeing upon the single performance price for the whole shooting match.

"The flip side of our multiple performances is that living composers who are members of ASCAP and BMI, et al., will get some nice royalties because of the multiple performances, and this often works in our favor as a mitigating factor on rental costs up front. (There was a snafu on this regarding the type of licenses HP has with ASCAP and BMI, but we have addressed that this year, and hopefully things will be ok from now on). So in this regard, composers would be more anxious to make it work for us.

"Sometimes there are weird reasons why we can't play something. At one point it was suggested that I look into having us play the famous slow middle movement of Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra. Turns out the current copyright holder (the composer's daughter) basically doesn't allow only that movement to be performed by itself -- or at least not unless you can get special permission from her. And the rental prices are really high! (They can get it since it's such a popular piece.)"My door is open to members (and composers!), as they say, so if you wish to have me look into something, or have any questions, feel free to e-mail me."

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