Author: tg4kcco
2018 Instrument Petting Zoo
Enjoy some images of budding musicians trying out instruments at our fifth annual Petting Zoo!
Senior Outreach – The Video
Take a look inside one of our senior outreach events, where our performances not only get toes tapping but also help brighten moods and bring back fond memories!
KCCO’s Original Concert Master, Dale Bryan
The Kansas City Civic Orchestra was saddened to hear of the passing of our first concertmaster, Dale M. Bryan.
Dale, a violin player, served as concertmaster from 1959 – the year of our founding – through 1966. Dale was a native of Kansas City. He graduated from Wyandotte High School in 1942. One of the accomplishments of which he was most proud was being selected concertmaster of the Kansas all-state high school orchestra festival at Emporia both his junior and senior years. It was on this return drive from Emporia his senior year that Dale learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He served in the Navy during and after World War II.
Dale held a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Kansas City and a Master of Arts degree in education from UMKC. He taught in the public schools of Smithville, North Kansas City, and Park Hill High School, where he initiated the first program of stringed instrument instruction. He left Park Hill to join the music faculty at what was then Park College. In addition to serving as KCCO’s first concert master Dale was also the original concert master of the Northland Symphony. In later years he was employed in various capacities at the Kansas City Public library. Following his retirement he spent his time in private teaching, taking care of his house and grounds, and volunteering at St. Luke’s Northland Hospital.
Dale continued to play his violin until the last few years of his life. The photo at left was taken within the last few months and shows Dale with his violin – the same one he played during his time with KCCO.
Our thoughts are with Dale’s family as we mourn the loss of our fellow music lover and key figure in KCCO’s history.
You can read Dale’s complete obituary here. KCCO is grateful to David McLane Bryan, Dale’s son, for providing the recent photo of Dale and for informing us of his passing.
Villains and Heroes
John Knox Village Performance
Outreach coordinator and violinist Jennifer Mitchell visited residents at John Knox Village in September. The audience was pleased to sing along with some familiar music!
60th Season Opening Concert – “American Fanfare”
PROGRAM DETAILS
Fanfare for the Common Man – Copland
Latin American Chronicles for Clarinet and Orchestra – Freiberg
Panorámicas
Diálogos
Influencias
Katsuya K. Yuasa, clarinet
INTERMISSION
Symphony No. 2 – Ives
Andante moderato
Allegro
Adagio cantabile
Lento maestoso
Allegro molto vivace
Outgoing President Marcia Barber
One of Marcia’s first actions on the board was to create the Friends of Civic. The Friends are a group of volunteers that supports the orchestra in its fundraising and publicity efforts and at its concerts. They are key to helping things at KCCO run smoothly! In 2013 Marcia formalized the grant and marketing committees, created the sponsorship program, and assisted the silent auction committee in tripling the size of that fundraiser. These efforts resulted in significant increases in revenue for the orchestra.
Marcia was also instrumental (pun intended!) in expanding the orchestra’s outreach efforts. In 2014 she worked with the board and music director Chris Kelts to develop and launch the Young Artist Concerto Competition, which was recently renamed in recognition of long-time orchestra member Carol Chatelain. The competition provides cultural, educational outreach to the community and supports and bolsters young musicians, giving them the opportunity to perform their concerto of choice with orchestral accompaniment at a highly attended public concert. The winner of the fourth annual competition joined KCCO for its performance at Helzberg Hall, as will this year’s winner.
Also in 2014, Marcia developed the first Instrument Petting Zoo, an event where KCCO musicians and Friends of Civic members introduce children to a variety of instruments, both teaching them about and giving them the opportunity to play the instruments. That year also saw the first KCCO concert intentionally programmed for children, featuring the Marimba Sol de Chiapas.
After the success of the petting zoo, Marcia formed an educational outreach committee – headed by Jennifer Mitchell – and charged the committee with identifying opportunities and methods for enhancing understanding and appreciation of orchestral music through special programming. In addition to taking over responsibility for the annual petting zoo, the outreach committee established a touring ensemble to reach underserved children and adults in the community. The program has been wildly successful; in 2018 it reached 3,800 children through its performances in schools, libraries, and hospitals and over 2,000 adults at its performances in centers for adults with memory challenges, developmental, and mobility issues.
KCCO is grateful for the time, effort, and talent Marcia dedicated to making the orchestra as successful as it is today, and our current co-presidents, Sheila Evans and Don Goldenbaum, look forward to continuing to make high quality orchestral music accessible to the KC metro community.
Meet the President – Don Goldenbaum
The two summers before leaving for college, Don played professionally in the pit orchestra of The Common Glory, a nightly outdoor pageant in Williamsburg, VA. Those two season-long exposures to daily (nightly) life as a musician, performing as a teen with big-city pros whose lives appeared to revolve entirely around music, convinced him that for him the violin would be an avocation rather than a vocation.
Instead of pursuing a musical career, Don got a B.A. in psychology and math from Antioch and an M.A. in philosophy and Ph.D. in Educational Research from Indiana University. While attending Indiana’s grad school, though not as a conservatory student, he enjoyed accompanying flute and voice majors during their senior recitals on classical guitar.
Shortly after moving to Kansas City in 1975, Don served as principal second violin in the KC Civic Orchestra under Glen Block, and later, was concertmaster of the Overland Park Orchestra and the Medical Arts Symphony. He plays violin today in the Kinnor Philharmonic and plays viola in KCCO’s viola section. A high point of his current musical life involves teaming with three other members of KCCO to introduce stringed instruments and musical ideas to young children in local schools, hospitals, and libraries as part of the orchestra’s musical outreach program.
Having music as a serious hobby allows day-job flexibility. Don followed a stint as a Senior Systems Analyst at KC’s Midwest Research Institute by eventually launching and running a technical writing and documentation firm, Applied Communications Group, providing onsite, IT- and manufacturing-related writing services to Sprint, Marion Labs, Burlington Northern Railroad, Bayer Animal Health, and other firms. Other positions included Executive Director of Johnson County Community College’s Business and Industry Institute, Vice President for Research at the Greater KC Community Foundation, and Vice President of the Kansas City Regional Council for Higher Education. As a freelance consultant, he designed instructional board games on technical and management subjects that training firms used in their commercial seminars and evaluated federally-funded programs for local colleges. Currently, he is a national reviewer of research-grant proposals for the National Endowment for the Arts.
Now serving as co-president of KCCO’s board, his earlier community involvement has included being on the boards of The Children’s Place, Carondelet Healthcare, and The Center for Practical Bioethics.
Don and his wife, Sally – a novelist – have three children, Todd, Aria, and Daniel, and six grandchildren, all of whom live much too far from Kansas City.