Young Musicians, Big Music

by Jessica Royer Ocken

It’s more than an hour until the Youth Symphony of DuPage’s concert, and the stage in North Central College’s Pfeiffer Hall is brimming with chairs, music stands, assorted instruments, and the teenaged musicians who play them. There’s a cell phone propped on one music stand, and someone in the string section slips off her shoes for a moment and waggles her bare feet in front of her, but this is a serious group.

In addition to the 77 young musicians from more than 20 towns around DuPage County, this concert will feature William Cernota, cellist from the Lyric Opera of Chicago; Mary Stolper, principal flute of the Grant Park Symphony; and Mary Sauer, principal keyboardist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This is a feat YSDP Music Director Meng-Kong Tham (who also teaches with these soloists at DePaul University’s School of Music) has described as both “hitting the jackpot” and “great musical karma.” At the moment, however, this karmic jackpot seems stressful, and Tham is cramming in some final rehearsal. He does a little arm-flailing interpretive dance to demonstrate the vibrancy he needs from the strings as they accompany Stolper. “There needs to be a buzz,” he explains urgently. “Otherwise it just sounds like it’s dying.”

The Youth Symphony of DuPage is an orchestra with 45 years of history. The musicians, currently ages 9 to 18, must audition annually for a chair in either the training orchestra or symphony. Those who are selected gather on Monday nights, September through May, for one or two hours, respectively. Add one more item to an already packed teenage agenda? No problem. “I’ve been doing it since I was little,” says 14-year-old first violinist Margaret Shang, a freshman at Naperville North. “It’s a typical Monday night thing that I do.” Eighteen-year-old flautist Stephany Sangeun Kim, a senior at Naperville Central, agrees. “My schedule works around the symphony,” she says. “I would never miss rehearsal.”

A volunteer board and many, many parents (as well as a variety of grants and donations) keep the orchestra in harmony. The supporters shuttle kids to and from rehearsals, help advertise concerts, manage finances, and in the case of board president Jo Ann Foss, keep a watchful eye and attendance clipboard at every YSDP event. “I was a music major, and I wish I’d had this kind of opportunity,” explains Foss. “My kids (who are YSDP alumni) are grown—one teaches music and one plays in a symphony —but that’s why I’m still around.”

At first glance, YSDP’s Monday night rehearsals have a casual feel. An orchestra circle of chairs is surrounded by a sea of multicolored coats and instrument cases, plus a smattering of parents, who are reading books or fiddling with cell phones. Musicians sport sneakers, holey jeans, and dangly earrings with sweatshirts, and there’s one musician donning a bright yellow stocking cap in the woodwind section, but this is not your usual gathering of teens. Sure, some of the cello players are barely taller than their cellos, but the chatter between playing is actually about the music, and the sound they produce—which, at its best moments, is rich and full and wonderful.

“They can be good, but I have to pull it out of them,” Tham explains later, making a hand-over-hand rope-pulling gesture. They’re learning a concerto at the time. “The main part is a piano solo, and it’s not there,” he says. “We have to learn it in fragments, and that’s a very grueling kind of rehearsal. To keep them focused, sometimes I have to scream at them.” Tham offers a sort of tough love—no false praise, no settling for merely adequate performance. “Not convincing,” he announces after one mediocre attempt. “You are not ready for it. It is very, very awkward, and that’s what makes it so difficult,” he explains. “I want to do that again.”

Leading student musicians is different than leading adults, Tham says. He tries to choose music he knows they can manage—and that has parts for all the different instruments, from bassoon to xylophone. But these are not the differences that are important.

Tham once guest-conducted the Grant Park Symphony in Chicago, he offers as illustration. “They could close their eyes and play most of the music,” he says. And with only one hour to rehearse, he didn’t have much opportunity to influence them. “It went fine by all means,” he recalls. “But to me that was just…a gig. With the youth orchestra, every drop of sweat I put in is returned. They do not know how to fear. Ask them if it’s hard, they don’t know. Their minds are still open and fresh.”

Tham’s love for what he does is palpable- palpable enough for him to brave two hours of traffic to arrive in Wheaton for rehearsal by 6:15 every Monday and to rank his work with YSDP just after his family and before even his position as head of World Music at DePaul. His biography helps explain. As a college music student in Taiwan in the late 1950s, Tham was introduced to Thor Johnson, a visiting professor from Northwestern University’s School of Music, who invited him to continue his studies with a scholarship to North

western. “This was like a Hollywood script and too go to be true,” Tham recalls. He moved to the United States, finished his violin performance degree, and earned a master’s degree in musicology as well. After graduating in 1965, Tham worked as program director at WEFM, the first FM classical radio station in the United States. Seven years later, when the station shifted to rock and roll, Tham decided to follow his mentor, Dr. Johnson, into conducting. “He was an example for me to see how to be a professional musician. But all along he was spending time cultivating young talent, and I was one who benefited greatly from that,” says Tham. “Why don’t I give back what I have received?” he thought.

Tham’s next job was librarian for the Chicago Civic Orchestra, a training orchestra for the Chicago Symphony. He began by setting out music before rehearsals, but eventually joined the conducting staff, and in 1977, a member of the Chicago Symphony told Tham about a suburban youth orchestra looking for a music director. “I have to consider myself so very fortunate,” Tham says. “I don’t even know if that word alone is enough to encompass everything that happened to me. Not just getting [the job with] the youth orchestra, but the board of directors and the kids and the music. It was really almost like a dream come true…and before you know it this is year number 31.”

Although music is Tham’s life, he and the YSDP do not demand that it become the life of all who participate. “I want them to experience this kind of music. Classical music is a source of inspiration,” says Tham. “I don’t even really want to make it sound like I encourage them all to become musicians. I just want them to experience the finest expression of music making. Whether they become a doctor, lawyer, or accountant, when they look back, they have this experience.”

However, YSDP participation does often lead to careers in music. Former members can be found in professional orchestras, concert halls, and music classrooms around the country. “We have kids playing at Harvard, Yale, MIT, you name it…,” says Tham. “They become an inspiration for me.” Nathan Johnson, currently a 16-year-old junior at Naperville Central, already has his sights on majoring in music. He says his participation in the YSDP as a French horn player will be “crucial” when applying to college. “I know I want to go to a good music school. Northwestern, Boston, or Rice. Those are my top three choices.”

But right now, it’s 15 minutes until show time, and the board is getting antsy about opening the doors. Tham waves them away for a few more moments of rehearsal. “When we perform a concert, you know that most people in the audience will love you no matter what you do,” Tham says he often tells the orchestra. “But that shouldn’t be the criteria for our achievement. If you are good, say to yourself, ‘We could do better.’ I always want to keep this in front of them and myself too,” he says. “It’s not just another concert.”

True to form, this one is not. At 3:05, the orchestra reassembles, Tham steps onto the platform, and the beautiful music begins.