Special to the Star-Herald
Famous violinist Isaac Stern said it nicely in his book “My First 79 Years”: “The audiences in the small towns got to hear some of the best talent, artists they would never have heard had they not been brought in by the Community Concerts.”
Presque Isle was certainly one of those small towns graced by performances of all kinds, from well-known to up-and-coming, yet-to-be-discovered classical and jazz artists, including singers, dancers and instrumentalists. In the mid 1940s, the first Community Concerts were held in the Presque Isle High School Gymnasium (later the Cunningham Middle School). From 1949, and for many years thereafter, the new high school auditorium hosted the concerts, and finally they were held in the even-newer Wieden Auditorium, which opened in 1959 at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. People of all ages attended the Community Concerts, many parents bringing their children to expose them to their first classical music and hopefully teaching them the proper decorum and etiquette for attending such “special” events.
The history of Community Concerts parallels in many ways that of the past century. In the 1920s, while Chautauqua tours, traveling minstrel shows and vaudeville had created a national appetite for live performance, they were disappearing from the scene. There was a demand for concerts; the question was how to find a new way to cover their cost.
In 1927, an idea called the organized audience plan originated. Instead of struggling to make up deficits after the fact, why not raise some money first and then hire the artists? Audiences, it seemed, were willing to spend a modest sum in advance for a season of three or four concerts, even if they didn’t know what the concerts were going to be. That was Community Concerts’ “magic ingredient,” and it worked. The idea spread throughout the whole country (and Canada) and fostered cultural development on an unprecedented scale.
After World War II, Community Concerts expanded rapidly, and between 1945 and 1950, the total number of community associations rose to 1,008. Audiences enjoyed the talents of famous performers like Vladimir Horowitz, Jascha Heifetz, Marian Anderson, Artur Rubinstein, Rudolph Serkin, Paul Robeson, and later, Canadian Brass and even the Boston Pops Orchestra.
Locally, Aroostook County families, who had been indifferent to “highbrow” single concerts, were attracted to a whole season with varied offerings at a reasonable price. People who had never been to a concert before were being invited to become members of the Concert Association by people they knew – ordinary folks who lived in and around Presque Isle. Each year, a representative from Columbia Artists Management in New York visited Presque Isle, bringing information about available artists (in our price range). After a week of campaigning for memberships, the local Selection Committee chose the artists it could afford, the New York office arranged contracts, provided the local association with publicity material and subsequently forwarded programs for the performances.
One particular year the Committee decided to choose a pianist as part of our series and selected two whom we thought we could afford. One’s cost was $150 and the other was $200. After reading their promotional material, we chose the less expensive pianist. Later that year, we read that the pianist who cost $200 went to Russia and won the Tchaikovsky Award. His name was Van Cliburn! Our loss … the world’s gain. Many of the well-known artists today started their careers by touring with the Community Concert Association.
An interesting note is that local businesses often purchased memberships that were personally distributed to deserving elementary and high school students by area music teachers. The Association hoped that by providing those “free” tickets, seeds were planted for future lovers of classical music and, hopefully, ardent concertgoers.
It was always interesting to meet the guest artists when they arrived in Presque Isle to perform. When I served as vice president, it was my duty to take them to the local hotel, then to Wieden Hall to check out the facilities. I remember a very irate Don Shirley (talented pianist of the Don Shirley Jazz Trio) when he realized the hall only had a 10-foot grand piano instead of the 12-footer he had requested in his contract. He threatened to cancel the concert. I reminded him of where we were on the map and explained that there wasn’t a 12-foot grand piano anywhere north of Bangor and the expense of having one shipped here was impossible for us. He finally calmed down and agreed to go on. That was lucky for us, as the music he performed was some of the most memorable in our long history.
On a more positive note, Roberta Griffiths remembers when George Shearing came to town.
“Mary Jo Andrews, a young local pianist and organist at the Congregational Church, was excited about meeting Mr. Shearing but had to be hospitalized and would miss his concert. I was able to make arrangements through our C.C. representative to have him meet Mary Jo. He agreed to visit with her before the concert, so my husband and I picked him up at the hotel and took him to the hospital. When he went into her room, he opened his formal black tuxedo jacket and flashed a beautiful red, orange and pink floral lining, saying, ‘Mary Jo, you are the only one who will know what my jazzy jacket lining looks like.’ He then visited with her for about 10 minutes,” said Griffiths.
Many artists were as friendly and accommodating throughout the years as was George Shearing.
Roberta shared another amusing anecdote.
“I was to pick up The Beaux Arts Trio at the airport. Since I had a fairly small car and was taking my 4-year-old along with me, I asked him if he would please sit in the back with two of them, letting one sit in the front. He agreed, but when we met them and brought them to the car, he refused to sit with them and jumped into the front seat. The three guests crowded into the back seat, refusing to place their instruments in the trunk, and held their ancient and valuable cello and violin on their laps,” she noted.
Another story from Roberta, “The duo pianists Ferrante and Teicher were playing at Wieden
Auditorium. As our 12-year-old son ran up to us during intermission, I introduced him to the two gentlemen. He politely replied that he was glad to meet them but then excitedly told us that he had just seen Al Weinberg! Al was a local merchant who was well-known for his ads on radio and television stations.”
Seeing Al seemed to make a bigger impression on the boy than those two famous pianists.
Following our concerts, receptions for the artists were often hosted by local families – a chance to meet and talk personally with the guest performers. Association officers, invited members and guests looked forward to these friendly get-togethers.
One additional advantage to becoming a member of the Community Concert Association was being able to use a membership card as admittance to any other Community Concert in the U.S. and Canada. In our area, we had associations in Caribou, Houlton, Grand Falls and Edmundston. If people were so inclined, they could attend 15 local concerts in one season!
Some other of the more memorable concerts held in Presque Isle and Caribou included: The Von Trapp Family Singers; The Don Cossack Chorus and Dancers; flamenco guitarist Pepe Romero; organist Ted Allenworth; The Bill Snyder Trio; The American Boy Choir; Chanticleer; cellist Sharon Robinson and violinist Jamie Laredo; The Ronnie Brown Trio; The Eastern Brass Quintet; duo harpists Longstreth and Escosa; The Jack D’Johns Trio; The John Biggs Consort; The Manhatten Rhythm Kings; guitarist Jorge Morel; The Lee Evans Jazz Trio; The Ronnie Kole Trio; The Texas Boy Choir; and harpist Mildred Dilling (who later appeared on the Mr. Rogers television program). Another famous pianist who performed with the C.C. Association in Presque Isle in the ‘40s was Percy Grainger.
There are still more than 400 active Community Concert Associations today, including some at small colleges, private schools and planned communities. But faced with the advent of television (especially Maine Public Television’s outstanding presentations), competing performing arts presenters and changing lifestyles, Presque Isle’s Association, as well as the other area associations, dissolved in the late ‘60s after declining memberships prevented their continuance.
Community Concerts certainly played an important part in the history of cultural life here in Presque Isle, exposing many of us to a lifelong love of “live” fine arts performances.
Bravo to those memories!
Photo courtesy of Richard Lord
PROMOTING THE ARTS — A picture of Richard Lord’s 54-year-old prize-winning Community Concert poster may show its age with the discolorations and stains but also evident in the hand-drawn design Lord created as a youth is the effort and care put into promoting the arts in remote Northern Maine, long before television and the Internet made such things so accessible.
Photo courtesy of Voscar
LOU BUFFONE and Dan Ladner perform a scene from “Camelot.”
