A little Beethoven on the prairie

JACKSON, MINN.

Eddie Yonker put on his bolo tie and sportcoat Thursday night for the big event at Jackson County Central High School (Home of the Huskies). Yonker, a cattle farmer from north of town, sat front and center with his wife as the 105-year-old Minnesota Orchestra made its first-ever visit to Jackson.

"This is the third time my wife and I have heard them," said Yonker, following the program of Sibelius, Beethoven and Christian Ludwig Dietter. "We went up to the cities once -- that's a long trip -- and we saw them in Mountain Lake many years ago. And we'll come again. It's just an amazing sound. The blending. I really like the violins. And to see the way the director directs. That's quite something."

It is quite something to see the world-class Minnesota Orchestra in this small auditorium.

A group that has toured Europe, Asia and the Middle East is this weekend on a mission closer to home, bringing music to Jackson, Marshall, Willmar and Cokato.

There was a giddy air as Yonker and his neighbors from this farm community of 3,500 took their seats. For many of the patrons -- young and old -- this was the first time they'd seen an orchestra, much less one that just won a Grammy nomination for its recording of Beethoven's Ninth.

"I have never been to anything like this," said Pam Pronk as she and her friend Maren Larson took their seats before the concert. At intermission they chatted about conductor Osmo Vänskä's animation and energy, which seemed larger-than-life on the small stage.

A gesture of sympathy

The mood was more solemn Friday night in Marshall, as the community continued to sort through the recent bus accident that left four children dead in nearby Cottonwood.

As a gesture of sympathy, the orchestra added Samuel Barber's elegiac "Adagio for Strings," to Friday's program, a piece certain to evoke strong emotions from the audience.

"I believe it will be emotional moment for us, too," Vänskä said, "because we know why we are playing it. We would like to give this small community a chance to put those sad emotional feelings to the music."

The state tour stretches back to 1907, when the Minneapolis Symphony traveled by train to Moorhead, Grand Rapids and Duluth. The tradition had waned for a number of years but was revived in 2002-03 as a way of celebrating the orchestra's centennial. It was a success, the musicians liked it and Vänskä felt it was important so the organization will do it two out of every three years.

So a caravan of about 100 musicians, staff and crew are gladly enduring a weekend of sodium-enriched Chicken Kiev, unfamiliar hotel beds and snooze-inducing bus trips across the prairie.

As he drove to his hotel in Worthington on Thursday night, Vänskä spoke of his conviction that the state tour is as important as any trip the orchestra will take, or any concert in Minneapolis.

"We try to be an orchestra for the whole state, as our name says," he said. "You have to go to the big music capitals, but you have to go here, too, where music is so seldom heard. We can give some kind of real experience here."

As flutist, Wendy Williams commented before taking the stage in Jackson, "Osmo makes us play Beethoven's Seventh like we're at Carnegie Hall."

While many of their colleagues practiced in their hotel rooms or ate breakfast on Friday morning, string players Pam Arnstein, Matthew Young, Michael Sutton and Arek Tesarczyk hustled over to Prairie Elementary School, where they held about 50 third- and fourth-graders rapt with selections from Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart.

Staying behind after the 30-minute program was a handful of groupies, including Naomi Troe, a young violist from Lakefield who had been at the Jackson concert the previous night. She asked Sutton to autograph her program.

"This is completely voluntary," said Sutton, when asked whether he had drawn the short straw for the morning assignment. "You saw the kids. They eat this up."

Bassist Bill Schrickel, a 31-year veteran, said the educational programs are among his favorite moments of the tour. He plans to remain in Cokato on Sunday after the concert and work for two hours with a youth symphony.

"These really are our audiences for the next generation," said Schrickel on the bus ride to Jackson. "So many organizations pay lip service to the idea of audience outreach. Here, we're going into people's back yards."

'We are cultural ambassadors'

Vänskä, who snacked and chatted with his colleagues in the hotel lounge late Thursday night, wasn't able to take the bus. He had met with Gov. Tim Pawlenty earlier in the day about the orchestra's pending $90 million expansion program. It was perhaps propitious that their conversation occurred just as the orchestra was heading out on the road.

"We spoke about the tour," Vänskä said. "Every time we play here, or outside the U.S., the name Minnesota is always mentioned. We are cultural ambassadors of this state."

As such, Vänskä said the orchestra would take on a serious responsibility with the Barber "Adagio" at the concert in Marshall. A few years ago, the orchestra played the same piece during a performance at Willmar, a community that was mourning deaths of soldiers in Iraq. It was an extraordinarily emotional moment, he recalled, and it fulfilled his core philosophy that music is an essential service, not an elitist luxury.

"I know it's a way to take care of people," he said as his car drove into the night. "It will be very sad at Marshall, there will be many tears. But music can speak. Music goes deeper than any words. When all the words are completed and finished, then it is time for the music to start. It really takes care of the spirit."

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299